Improved prediction of lobar perfusion contribution using technetium-99m-labeled macroaggregate of albumin single...

Lung cancer resection can require removal of an entire lobe and, at times, bilobectomy or pneumonectomy. Many patients will also have significantly compromised lung function that requires limiting the extent of surgery or could preclude surgery altogether. The preoperative assessment should include predicted postoperative forced expiratory volume in 1 second (ppoFEV1), because a ppoFEV1 of <40% predicts significantly increased perioperative morbidity. The ppoFEV1 can be estimated by multiplying the preoperative FEV1 by the residual perfused territory percentage, as predicted on planar perfusion scintigraphy (PPS). However, ppoFEV1 using PPS has shown variable correlation with spirometry-measured postoperative FEV1.

We propose an improved method for assessing regional lung perfusion in preoperative lung surgery patients. Patients undergo single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) imaging with attenuation correction using the conventional perfusion agent, technetium-99m-labeled macroaggregate of albumin. The CT image provides information for manual segmentation of each lobe. These segmentations are applied to the SPECT images to determine lobar perfusion. This proposed method was compared with PPS.

This technique was evaluated in 17 patients. As expected, the perfusion contributions of the right and left lungs, calculated from SPECT/CT, correlated closely with those obtained from PPS (Pearson r=0.995). However, the lobar perfusion contributions obtained by PPS and SPECT/CT were significantly different, by 2 methods of comparison (Hotelling's P=1.7×10(-6) and P=1.7×10(-4)).

This new SPECT/CT technique provides an anatomically more accurate assessment of lobar perfusion. This technique can refine which patients should be operative candidates and allow better prediction of postoperative function in contrast to the anatomically inaccurate planar scintigraphic predictions, which often underestimate the postoperative FEV1. This new technique is expected to have a significant effect on the resectability of patients with lung cancer.