[Prediction of one second forced expiratory volume after lung resection using multiple view lung perfusion images and...

In 17 patients mostly with bronchial carcinoma undergoing pneumonectomy (N = 2) or lobectomy (N = 15) multiple view lung perfusion images with 99mTc-MAA and "regions of interest" quantitative analysis of functional distributions to each lung or lobe (MV-ROI) were used for predicting postoperative FEV1. For comparison, other two methods were also conducted, i.e. the split function study by lung perfusion images combined with subtraction of segmental function (SF+SS) and the simple subtraction of segmental function (SSS). The correlation between predicted postoperative FEV1 and actual FEV1 measured 3-6 months after lung resection was better by MV-ROI method than by the other two. In all patients the correlation coefficient (r) was 0.957, 0.923 and 0.887 by three methods respectively; in lobectomy patients the (r) was 0.948, 0.907 and 0.869 by three methods respectively (all P less than 0.001). The mean error (liters), mean percent error and median of percent error between predicted and observed FEV1 in MV-ROI were less than in SF+SS or SSS. The difference between error of MV-ROI and error of SF+SS or SSS was significant, while the difference between error of SF+SS and error of SSS was insignificant. The number of cases having the error greater than 10% was 3,5,8 in all patients and 3,5,7 in lobectomy patients by three methods respectively. There was a tendency of overestimation in MV-ROI, which was attributed to the old age of our patients whose pulmonary functions recovered slowly and to the short period of the follow-up.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)