A Multicenter Clinical Trial on the Diagnostic Value of Dual-Tracer PET/CT in Pulmonary Lesions Using 3′-Deoxy-3′-18F-Fluorothymidine and 18F-FDG

作者：Jiahe Tian, Xiaofeng Yang, Lijuan Yu, Ping Chen, Jun Xin, Liming Ma, Huiru Feng, Yieyin Tan, Zhoushe Zhao, Wenkai Wu · 发表于：Journal of Nuclear Medicine · 年份：2008 · DOI：10.2967/jnumed.107.044966 · 被引用次数：88 · 研究领域：Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications、Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment、Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry and Applications

UNLABELLED: Some new radiotracers might add useful information and improve diagnostic confidence of (18)F-FDG imaging in tumors. A multicenter clinical trial was designed to investigate the diagnostic performance of dual-tracer ((18)F-FDG and 3'-deoxy-3'-(18)F-fluorothymidine [(18)F-FLT]) PET/CT in pulmonary nodules. METHODS: Fifty-five patients underwent dual-tracer imaging in 6 imaging centers using the same models of equipment and standardized protocols. The images were interpreted by a collective group of readers who were unaware of the clinical data. The diagnostic performance using either tracer alone or dual-tracers together, with or without CT, was compared. The histological diagnosis or clinical findings in a 12-mo follow-up period served as the standard of truth. RESULTS: In 16 patients with malignant tumor, 16 with tuberculosis, and 23 with other benign lesions, the sensitivity and specificity of (18)F-FDG and (18)F-FLT were 87.5% and 58.97% and 68.75% and 76.92%, respectively. The combination of dual-tracer PET/CT improved the sensitivity and specificity up to 100% and 89.74%. The 3 subgroups of patients could be best separated when the (18)F-FLT/(18)F-FDG standardized uptake value ratio of 0.4-0.90 was used as the threshold. CONCLUSION: By reflecting different biologic features, the dual-tracer PET/CT using (18)F-FDG and (18)F-FLT favorably affected the diagnosis of lung nodules.