[Virtual gastroscopy. Preliminary experience].
OBJECTIVE
To define the role of virtual gastroscopy (VG) in the detection of elevated lesions comparing its results with conventional endoscopy (CE) as the gold standard method.


METHODS
Between December 2000 and July 2001, 19 patients were evaluated. The age ranged between 41 and 72 (mean 58.8 years old). VG and CE were performed in all the patients during the same week. VG were carried out with a multislice CT scanner (Mx 8000, Marconi Medical Systems). The technical parameters used were 3 mm with slices and 1.5 mm reconstruction intervals. The acquisition time was 22 seconds. Images were sent to a workstation (MxView, Marconi Medical Systems) where they were reprocessed in three different ways: 1) Bidimensionally 2) Tridimensionally 3) Virtual Endoscopy Findings of VG were compared with CE.


RESULTS
VG detected 39 lesions, whereas CE detected 40 lesions. There were 39 true-positive findings, 2 true-negative findings, 0 false-positive findings and 1 false-negative findings. The Sensitivity (Se) was 97.5%; Specificity (Sp) was 100%, positive predictive value 100% and Negative predictive value 66%.


CONCLUSIONS
VG is a new non-invasive method with high Se and Sp in the detection of elevated lesions. The actual role of VG consist in identification of gastric lesions and possibility to diagnose gastric disease.
Departamento de TC y Radiología de Diagnóstico Maipú, Vicente López, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Patricia
P
Carrascosa
R
R
Corti
G
G
Sangster
C
C
Capuñay
G
G
Suinbourn
Liliana
L
Schenone
A
A
Giordano
J
J
Doweck
G
G
Menéndez
J
J
Valero
O
O
Zerbo
J
J
Carrascosa
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005773:Gastroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013272:Stomach Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed