TY - JOUR T1 - Predictive Value of <sup>99m</sup>Tc-MAA SPECT for <sup>90</sup>Y-Labeled Resin Microsphere Distribution in Radioembolization of Primary and Secondary Hepatic Tumors JF - Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO - J Nucl Med SP - 1654 LP - 1660 DO - 10.2967/jnumed.115.162685 VL - 56 IS - 11 AU - Harun Ilhan AU - Anna Goritschan AU - Philipp Paprottka AU - Tobias F. Jakobs AU - Wolfgang P. Fendler AU - Andrei Todica AU - Peter Bartenstein AU - Marcus Hacker AU - Alexander R. Haug Y1 - 2015/11/01 UR - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/56/11/1654.abstract N2 - This study analyzed the predictive value of 99mTc-labeled macroaggregated albumin (99mTc-MAA) SPECT for 90Y-labeled resin microsphere therapy (radioembolization) by comparing uptake on pretherapeutic 99mTc-MAA SPECT with uptake on posttherapeutic 90Y-bremsstrahlung SPECT. Methods: We included 502 patients (55% male; mean age ± SD, 62 ± 11 y) who underwent radioembolization between 2005 and 2013 because of primary or secondary liver malignancies (colorectal cancer [n = 195, 38.8%], neuroendocrine tumors [n = 77, 15.3%], breast cancer [n = 68, 13.5%], hepatocellular carcinoma [n = 59, 11.8%], cholangiocellular carcinoma [n = 40, 8.0%], or urologic tumors [n = 14, 2.8%]). Manually drawn regions of interest around tumors and adjacent healthy liver tissue for up to 3 lesions per patient on 99mTc-MAA and 90Y-bremsstrahlung scans were used to quantify mean counts per pixel and evaluate the mean tumor-to-background ratio (TBR). Data were given as mean ± SD. Additionally, uptake in lesions on 99mTc-MAA and 90Y-bremsstrahlung scans was graded visually as homogeneously higher than (grade 1), heterogeneously higher than (grade 2), equal to (grade 3), or lower than (grade 4) uptake in normal liver tissue. The Mann–Whitney U test and Spearman correlation were used to evaluate statistically significant differences between 99mTc-MAA and 90Y-bremsstrahlung SPECT. Results: In total, 1,008 lesions were analyzed. Of the 23% (230/1,008) of lesions that had grade 1 uptake on 99mTc-MAA SPECT, 81% (186/230) remained grade 1 after radioembolization whereas 16% (37/230) were grade 2. Of the lesions with grade 2 uptake on 99mTc-MAA SPECT, 16% had grade 1 uptake and 82% grade 2 uptake after radioembolization. Of the lesions with grade 3 uptake, however, 27% had grade 1 uptake and 47% grade 2 uptake after radioembolization. Even among the lesions with grade 4 uptake on 99mTc-MAA SPECT, 21% had grade 1 uptake and 46% grade 2 uptake after radioembolization. The mean TBR on 99mTc-MAA and 90Y-bremsstrahlung SPECT showed a significant, though low, correlation in the total population (r = 0.26; P &lt; 0.001) and in hepatocellular carcinoma (r = 0.4; P &lt; 0.001), cholangiocellular carcinoma (r = 0.3; P &lt; 0.05), breast cancer (r = 0.3; P &lt; 0.001), colorectal cancer (r = 0.2; P &lt; 0.001), and neuroendocrine tumors (r = 0.2; P &lt; 0.01). Conclusion: Although significant for most lesions, the correlation between 99mTc-MAA and 90Y-microsphere mean TBR was low. Classifying uptake into 4 grades revealed that lesions with high uptake on 99mTc-MAA SPECT maintain high uptake within radioembolization. More than 60% of lesions with a pretherapeutically lower uptake than in healthy liver tissue, however, showed high uptake within radioembolization. Patients with low tumor uptake on pretherapeutic 99mTc-MAA imaging should not be excluded from radioembolization. ER -