title: Detection of esophagitis by 99mTc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile chest SPECT.
abstract: Esophagitis is a common complication of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Unfortunately, an accurate diagnosis of esophagitis usually requires invasive endoscopy. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the use of noninvasive 99mTc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile (MIBI) chest SPECT to detect esophagitis in GERD patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty GERD patients who underwent endoscopy for diagnosis and grading of esophagitis according to the Savary-Miller grading system were included in this study. 99mTc-MIBI chest SPECT was performed on all patients to detect and grade esophagitis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  On the basis of the endoscopic findings, the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 99mTc-MIBI chest SPECT to detect esophagitis were 100%, 77%, and 95%, respectively. The correlation between the Savary-Miller grading system and 99mTc-MIBI chest SPECT grading was found to be good.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Noninvasive 99mTc-MIBI chest SPECT has excellent sensitivity and good accuracy as a screen for esophagitis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan.
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Hsieh
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Y J
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004942:Esophagitis, Peptic / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D017256:Technetium Tc 99m Sestamibi; D013909:Thorax / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D017256:Technetium Tc 99m Sestamibi