FDG PET and PET-CT for the detection of bone metastases in patients with head and neck cancer. A meta-analysis

We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate 18FDG PET/PET-CT for the detection of bone metastases in patients with head and neck cancer. We calculated sensitivities, specificities, likelihood ratios, and constructed summary receiver operating characteristic curves for PET and PET-CT, respectively. We also compared the performance of PET/PET-CT with that of bone scintigraphy by analysing studies that had also used bone scintigraphy on the same patients. Across 9 PET studies (1621 patients) and 10 PET-CT studies (1291 patients), sensitivity and specificity of PET were 0.81 and 0.99, and of PET-CT were 0.89 and 0.99, respectively. In 5 comparative studies (1184 patients), sensitivity and specificity of PET/PET-CT were 0.85 and 0.98, and of bone scintigraphy were 0.55 and 0.98, respectively. 18FDG PET and PET-CT have high sensitivity and accuracy for the detection of bone metastasis in patients with head and neck cancer.