Role of molecular imaging in the management of patients affected by inflammatory bowel disease: State-of-the-art

Table 1 Studies on planar scintigraphy and single photon emission tomography included in the present review

Ref.	Year of pub	Journal	n of pts	Indication	Imaging technique	Gold standard	Conclusion
Rowe et al[14]	1995	Am J Gastroenterol	11	The measurement of the severity colitis	111In-labelled leukocyte planar scintigraphy	Truelove and Witts criteria	The disappearance of radioactivity from the spleen or whole body during 24 h is likely to be a useful and accurate index of disease severity in inflammatory colitis Scintigraphy is useful for patients with CD, but not for ulcerative colitis. Leukocyte scintigraphy is more useful for the reassessment than initial diagnosis (particularly in case of structuring and fistulising CD). 99mTc-Leukoscan cannot be useful for the evaluation of IBD
Lachter et al[8]	2003	Hepato-Gastroenterology	46	Diagnosis of suspected inflammatory bowel disease	99mTc-HMPAO planar scintigraphy	Histology
Kerry et al[10]	2005	Nuclear Medicine Communication	22	Diagnosis of IBD and comparison between 99mTc-HMPAO and 99mTc-Leukoscan	99mTc-HMPAO planar scintigraphy 99mTc-Leukoscan planar scintigraphy 99mTc-Leukoscan SPECT	Histology Radiology Response to treatment
Biancone et al[11]	2005	Am J Gastroenterol	22	Comparison between 99mTc-HMPAO planar and SPECT for the assessment of intestinal infiltration in CD	99mTc-HMPAO planar and SPECT	Histology	SPECT images may better discriminate between intestinal and bone marrow uptake, thus allowing a better visualization of CD lesions in the pelvis (especially for perianal and enterovesical disease)
Cheow et al[15]	2005	Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging	30	To quantify disease activity in IBD	99mTc-granulocytes planar scintigraphy and 111In-granulocytes	NA	A dedicated whole-body counting using 111In can be useful to quantify inflammatory disease, especially IBD
Van den Brande et al[16]	2007	Gut	14	To predict the efficacy of anti-TNF treatment in IBD	99mTc-annexin V	Histology	The uptake of 99mTc-annexin V correlates with clinical benefit of anti-TNF treatment
Mota et al[13]	2010	World J Gastroenterol	20	To evaluate inflammatory activity in CD patients	99mTc-HMPAO	NA	Scintigraphy with radiolabeled HMPAO could be useful for the evaluation of intestinal activity in CD
Paredes et al[9]	2010	Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis	40	To assess the accuracy of abdominal ultrasonography, 99mTc-HMPAO in recurrent CD	99mTc-HMPAO	Histology	99mTc-HMPAO can be used in case of postsurgical recurrence in CD, in particular for those patients who reject endoscopic examination or for the assessment of neoterminal ileum
Hillel et al[12]	2011	Nuclear Medicine Communication	99	To compare planar and SPECT imaging in IBD	99mTc-HMPAO	NA	SPECT improves interoperator variability and probably sensitivity for IBD. The size of lesion suggest that planar images underestimates the extent of active disease
Aarntzen et al[19]	2015	J Nucl Med	30	To assess the accuracy of 99mTc-CXCL8 SPECT to detect and to localize disease activity	99mTc-CXCL8	Histology	99mTc-CXCL8 is a novel target for neutrophil recruitment to the intestinal wall, especially in moderate to severe exacerbations of IBD

CD: Crohn’s disease; IBD: Inflammatory bowel disease; TNF: Tumor necrosis factor; NA: Not available; SPECT: Single photon emission tomography; pts: Patients.