Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 28, 2015; 21(40): 11481-11488
Published online Oct 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i40.11481
Diagnostic accuracy of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in gallbladder cancer: A meta-analysis
Salvatore Annunziata, Daniele Antonio Pizzuto, Carmelo Caldarella, Federica Galiandro, Ramin Sadeghi, Giorgio Treglia
Salvatore Annunziata, Daniele Antonio Pizzuto, Carmelo Caldarella, Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Bioimaging and Radiological Sciences, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 00168 Rome, Italy
Federica Galiandro, Postgraduate School of General Surgery, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 00168 Rome, Italy
Ramin Sadeghi, Nuclear Medicine Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, 91735315 Mashhad, Iran
Giorgio Treglia, Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center, Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, 6500 Bellinzona, Switzerland
Author contributions: Annunziata S, Galiandro F and Treglia G designed research; Annunziata S and Pizzuto DA performed research; Caldarella C and Sadeghi R analyzed data; Annunziata S, Pizzuto DA and Treglia G wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Salvatore Annunziata, MD, Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Bioimaging and Radiological Sciences, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Agostino Gemelli 8, 00168 Rome, Italy. salvatoreannunziata@live.it
Telephone: +39-6-30154978 Fax: +39-6-3058185
Received: May 26, 2015
Peer-review started: May 29, 2015
First decision: June 19, 2015
Revised: July 15, 2015
Accepted: September 14, 2015
Article in press: September 15, 2015
Published online: October 28, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To meta-analyze published data about the diagnostic accuracy of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/computed tomography (PET/CT) in the evaluation of primary tumor in patients with gallbladder cancer (GBCa).

METHODS: A comprehensive literature search of studies published through 30th June 2014 regarding the role of 18F-FDG PET and PET/CT in the evaluation of primary gallbladder cancer (GBCa) was performed. All retrieved studies were reviewed. Pooled sensitivity and specificity of 18F-FDG PET or PET/CT in the evaluation of primary GBCa were calculated. The area under the summary receiving operator characteristics curve (AUC) was calculated to measure the accuracy of these methods. Sub-analyses considering the device used (PET vs PET/CT) were carried out.

RESULTS: Twenty-one studies comprising 495 patients who underwent 18F-FDG PET or PET/CT for suspicious GBCa were selected for the systematic review. The meta-analysis of 13 selected studies provided the following results: sensitivity 87% (95%CI: 82%-92%), specificity 78% (95%CI: 68%-86%). The AUC was 0.88. Improvement of sensitivity and specificity was observed when PET/CT was used.

CONCLUSION: 18F-FDG-PET and PET/CT demonstrated to be useful diagnostic imaging methods in the assessment of primary tumor in GBCa patients, nevertheless possible sources of false-negative and false-positive results should be kept in mind. PET/CT seems to have a better diagnostic accuracy than PET alone in this setting.

Keywords: Positron emission tomography, Positron emission tomography/computed tomography, Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose, Gallbladder cancer

Core tip: Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/computed tomography (CT) demonstrated to be useful diagnostic imaging methods in the assessment of primary tumor in gallbladder carcinoma patients, nevertheless possible sources of false-negative and false-positive results should be kept in mind. PET/CT seems to have a better diagnostic accuracy than PET alone in this setting.