RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Performance of <sup>18</sup>F-Fluoro-Ethyl-Tyrosine (<sup>18</sup>F-FET) PET for the Differential Diagnosis of Primary Brain Tumor: A Systematic Review and Metaanalysis
JF Journal of Nuclear Medicine
JO J Nucl Med
FD Society of Nuclear Medicine
SP 207
OP 214
DO 10.2967/jnumed.111.096859
VO 53
IS 2
A1 Vincent Dunet
A1 Christine Rossier
A1 Alfred Buck
A1 Roger Stupp
A1 John O. Prior
YR 2012
UL http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/53/2/207.abstract
AB For the past decade, PET with 18F-fluoro-ethyl-tyrosine (18F-FET) has been used in the evaluation of patients with primary brain tumors (PBTs), but so far series have reported only a limited number of patients. The purpose of this systematic review and metaanalysis was to assess the diagnostic performance of 18F-FET PET in patients with suspicion of PBT. Methods: We examined studies published in the literature using MEDLINE and EMBASE databases. Inclusion criteria were use of 18F-FET PET for initial assessment of patients with a newly diagnosed brain lesion; patients who had no radiotherapy, surgery, or chemotherapy before 18F-FET PET; and use of histology as a gold standard. Metaanalysis was performed on a per-patient basis. We secondarily performed receiver-operating-characteristic analysis of pooled patients to determine tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) of 18F-FET uptake and best diagnostic value. Results: Thirteen studies totaling 462 patients were included. For the diagnosis of PBT, 18F-FET PET demonstrated a pooled sensitivity of 0.82 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.74–0.88), specificity of 0.76 (95% CI, 0.44–0.92), area under the curve of 0.84 (95% CI, 0.80–0.87), positive likelihood ratio of 3.4 (95% CI, 1.2–9.5), and negative likelihood ratio of 0.24 (95% CI, 0.14–0.39). Receiver-operating-characteristic analysis indicated that a mean TBR threshold of at least 1.6 and a maximum TBR of at least 2.1 had the best diagnostic value for differentiating PBTs from nontumoral lesions. Conclusion: 18F-FET PET demonstrated excellent performance for diagnosing PBTs. Strict standardization of PET acquisition protocols and prospective, multicenter studies investigating the added value over current MRI are now needed to establish 18F-FET PET as a highly relevant tool for patient management.