Bone SPECT and CT fusion imaging in pediatric neuroblastoma

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic performance of bone SPECT and CT fusion imaging in bone metastases from pediatric neuroblastoma.Methods Twenty-four pediatric patients with neuroblastoma were included in this retrospective study.All patients underwent planar imaging and SPECT integrated with CT.Lesion visibility,diagnostic certainty and diagnostic performance were evaluated with KolmogorovSmirnov test andx2 test.Results Lesion visibility of SPECT alone,SPECT integrated with CT were significantly better than that of planar imaging ( both H =69.000,P ＜ 0.05 ).SPECT and CT fusion imaging,SPECT alone both detected five more bone lesions than planar bone imaging (77 vs 72).The diagnostic accuracy of SPECT imaging (62.34％,48/77 ) was significantly higher than that of planar imaging (45.45％,35/77; x2 =4.416,P ＜ 0.05 ).The sensitivity,specificity and accuracy of SPECT and CT fusion imaging for diagnosing malignant bone lesions were significantly higher than those of planar imaging:82.35％ (42/51) vs 53.19％ ( 25/47),88.46％ ( 23/26 ) vs 40.00％ ( 10/25 ),84.42％ ( 65/77 ) vs 45.45％ (35/77 ; x2 =12.571,14.016,25.667,all P ＜ 0.01 ).The diagnostic specificity and accuracy of SPECT and CT fusion imaging were significantly higher than those of SPECT alone ( 53.85％,14/26 ;62.34％,48/77) (x2 =7.589,9.606,both P ＜0.01 ).However,there was no significant difference of sensitivity between the two methods (x2 =2.942,P ＞ 0.05 ).Diagnostic certainty by SPECT and CT fusion imaging was significantly higher than that by SPECT alone ( H =28.000,P ＜ 0.05 ) and by planar imaging (H =21.000,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion SPECT and CT fusion imaging can detect more bone lesions in patients with pediatric neuroblastoma.It is helpful for diagnosing bone metastases from pediatric neuroblastoma. Key words: Neuroblastoma;  Neoplasm metastasis ;  Skeleton;  Tomography, emission-computed,single-photon;  Tomography, X-ray computed;  MDP