Diagnostic accuracy of 201Thallium-SPECT and 18F-FDG-PET in the clinical assessment of glioma recurrence.
OBJECTIVE
Reliable differential diagnosis between tumour recurrence and treatment-induced lesions is required to take advantage of new therapeutic approaches to recurrent gliomas. Structural imaging methods offer a high sensitivity but a low specificity, which might be improved by neurofunctional imaging. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that incorporation of 18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) increases the accuracy of this differential diagnosis obtained with 201Tl chloride-single-photon emission computed tomography (201Tl-SPECT).


METHODS
Seventy-six patients (mean age 47.72 +/- 16.19 years) under suspicion of glioma recurrence, 42% with low-grade and 58% with high-grade lesions, were studied by (201)Tl-SPECT and FDG-PET, reporting results under blinded conditions using visual analysis. Tumour was confirmed by histological confirmation (23 patients) or clinical and structural neuroimaging follow-up (mean of 2.6 years).


RESULTS
This population had a high disease prevalence (72%). Globally, highest sensitivity was obtained using 201Tl-SPECT assessed with MRI (96%) and highest specificity using FDG-PET + MRI (95%). FDG-PET appeared slightly better for confirming tumour recurrence, whereas 201Tl-SPECT was superior for ruling out possible recurrence (disease present in 38% of FDG-PET negative explorations). In the high-grade subgroup, there were no false-positive examinations (specificity: 100%), but sensitivity differed among techniques (201Tl-SPECT : 94%; 201Tl-SPECT + MRI: 97%; FDG-PET + MRI: 83%). In the low-grade subgroup, 201Tl-SPECT + MRI showed highest sensitivity (95%) and lowest posttest negative probability (9%); FDG-PET + MRI offered highest specificity (92%) with a posttest negative probability of 35%.


CONCLUSIONS
FDG-PET does not clearly improve the diagnostic accuracy of (201)Tl-SPECT, which appears to be a more appropriate examination for the diagnosis of possible brain tumour recurrence, especially for ruling it out.
Gómez-Río
Manuel
M
Nuclear Medicine Department, "Virgen de las Nieves", University Hospital, Avda/ Fuerzas Armadas, 2., 18014 Granada, Spain. manuel.gomez.rio.sspa@juntadeandalucia.es
Rodríguez-Fernández
Antonio
A
Ramos-Font
Carlos
C
López-Ramírez
Escarlata
E
Llamas-Elvira
José Manuel
JM
D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005910:Glioma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013793:Thallium; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; C027549:thallium chloride; D013793:Thallium