Comparison of 18F-FDG PET/CT with bone scintigraphy for detection of bone metastasis: a meta-analysis

The skeleton is one of the favorable sites for the metastasis of almost all human malignant neoplasms. An accurate diagnosis of bone metastasis is crucial for the patient's staging and management.

To investigate and compare diagnostic performance of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and bone scintigraphy (BS) for detection of bone metastasis in malignancies using meta-analysis.

PubMed (Medline included) was searched for relevant articles. We assessed the methodological quality with Quality Assessment of Diagnosis Accuracy Studies (QUADAS) score tool, and used statistical software to obtain pooled estimates of sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver-operating characteristic (SROC) curve.

Six studies met inclusion criteria. For 18F-FDG PET/CT, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.934 and 0.975, respectively. The pooled positive likelihood ratio (LR+), negative likelihood ratio (LR-) and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were 34.990, 0.068 and 559.02, respectively. The area under the SROC curve was 0.9854. For BS, the pooled sensitivity, specificity, LR + , LR- and DOR were 0.706 (0.642-0.764), 0.911 (0.896-0.926), 13.982 (2.419-80.817), 0.319 (0.143-0.712), and 60.420 (21.393-170.64), respectively. The area under the SROC curve was 0.9386.

The results indicate that 18F-FDG PET/CT do have both higher sensitivity and specificity than bone scintigraphy for detecting metastatic bone tumor. However, further research is needed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of 18F-FDG PET/CT and BS in each common malignancy.