Comparison of F-FDG PET with Tc-MIBI SPECT in the Detection of Primary Oral Cancer and Lymph Node Metastasis

Received 2/23/2010; revised 3/19/2010; accepted 3/22/2010. For correspondence and reprints contact: Wan-Yu Lin, M.D., Department of Nuclear Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital. 160 Section 3, ChungGung Road, Taichung 407, Taiwan. Tel: (886)4-23741349, Fax: (886)4-23741348, E-mail: [email protected] Purpose: The purpose of this work was to compare [F]2-deoxy-2-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) PET and Tcmethoxyisobutylisonitrile (MIBI) SPECT in the detection of primary oral cancer and cervical lymph node metastasis in the same patients. Methods: Thirty patients (28 males and 2 females, aged between 31 and 75 with a mean age of 52.3 years) with newly-diagnosed oral cancer were enrolled in this study. The FDG PET and MIBI SPECT examinations were performed in all patients before operation. The time interval between these two examinations was within 3 days. The diagnostic accuracy for detecting cervical lymph node metastases was based on surgical results or comparing the results of CT and/or MRI and physical findings. Both FDG PET and MIBI SPECT images were interpreted by at least two nuclear medicine specialists. Results: The sensitivities of FDG PET and MIBI SPECT were 93.3% and 83.3%, respectively, for the detection of primary oral cancer. In the detection of the lymph node involvement, the sensitivities of FDG PET and MIBI SPECT were 83.3% and 27.8%, respectively, while the specificities were 81.8% and 95.4%, respectively. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the sensitivity of both FDG PET and MIBI SPECT modalities were good for the detection of primary oral cancer, although FDG PET had better sensitivity than MIBI SPECT. In the detection of lymph node involvement, MIBI SPECT had much lower sensitivity but showed better specificity than those of FDG PET.