Comparison of Gadolinium-enhanced MRI and 18FDG PET/PET-CT for the diagnosis of brain metastases in lung cancer patients: A meta-analysis of 5 prospective studies

OBJECTIVE We undertook this meta-analysis to compare the significance of Gadolinium-enhanced MRI and 18FDG PET/PET-CT for diagnosing brain metastases of lung cancer patients. RESULTS Five articles comprising 941 patients were included for analysis. The sensitivities with 95% confidence interval for PET/PET-CT and MRI were 0.21 (0.13 - 0.32) and 0.77 (95% CI = 0.60 - 0.89), specificities were 1.00 (0.99 - 1.00) and 0.99 (0.97 - 1.00), and the areas under curve were 0.98 (0.96 - 0.89) and 0.97 (0.96 - 0.98). MATERIALS AND METHODS A computerized literature search of studies was conducted in the Pubmed and Embase databases. Meta-analysis methods were used to calculate the sensitivities, specificities, likelihood ratios ratios, diagnostic odd ratios, and areas under summary receiver operating characteristic curves for PET/PET-CT and MRI, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The analysis suggested Gadolinium-enhanced MRI had higher sensitivity than 18FDG PET/PET-CT for the diagnosis of brain metastases in lung cancer. MRI may provide additional information to PET-CT for diagnosing brain metastatic lesions.