Comparative study of 18F-FDG PET imaging and 99Tcm-MDP whole body bone imaging in detection of bone metastasis

Abstract

Objective To compare the clinical value of 18F-FDG PET imaging and 99Tcm-MDP whole body bone imaging in detection of bone metastases. Methods 43 patients were undergone 18F-FDG PET and 99Tcm-MDP imaging within 2 weeks. 28 of them were with confirmed bone metastases by other examinations or follow-up and the remaining 15 were confirmed without bone metastases. The results of the 2 different modalities were analyzed. Results Among 28 patients with confirmed bone metastases, PET and MDP accurately diagnosed 26 and 27, respectively. The sensitivity of them were 92.9 %(26/28), 96.4 %(27/28), Among the remaining 19 cases without bone metastases, PET and MDP correctly gave 14 and 8 negative results, respectively. The specificity of them were 93.3 %(14/15), 53.3 %(8/15), and accuracy of them were 93.0 %(40/43), 81.4 %(35/43). The differences between specificities and accuracies of the two methods were significant, while no significant difference between the sensitivities of the two methods. Conclusion For the detection of bone metastases in patients with malignant tumors, 18F-FDG PET showed a similar sensitivity but better specificity and accuracy compared with 99Tcm-MDP bone scan. For patients with suspected bone metastases, negative finding or single hot spot in 99Tcm-MDP imaging, 18F-FDG PET imaging was recommend as a further and complementary assessment of bone metastases. Key words: Neoplasm metastasis; Skeleton; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; Positron-emission tomography; Technetium Tc99m medronate