title: 18 FDG PET and PET-CT for the detection of bone metastases in patients with head and neck cancer. A meta-analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate (18) FDG PET/PET-CT for the detection of bone metastases in patients with head and neck cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  We calculated sensitivities, specificities, likelihood ratios, and constructed summary receiver operating characteristic curves for PET and PET-CT, respectively. We also compared the performance of PET/PET-CT with that of bone scintigraphy by analysing studies that had also used bone scintigraphy on the same patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Across 9 PET studies (1621 patients) and 10 PET-CT studies (1291 patients), sensitivity and specificity of PET were 0.81 and 0.99, and of PET-CT were 0.89 and 0.99, respectively. In 5 comparative studies (1184 patients), sensitivity and specificity of PET/PET-CT were 0.85 and 0.98, and of bone scintigraphy were 0.55 and 0.98, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  (18) FDG PET and PET-CT have high sensitivity and accuracy for the detection of bone metastasis in patients with head and neck cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Xuelian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Yilin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hongting
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Shixi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000556:secondary*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18
keywords: 18FDG PET; bone metastases; head and neck neoplasms; meta-analysis