Background: Accurate staging of lung cancer is essential for effective patient management and selection of appropriate therapeutic strategy. The aim of this paper was to compare the value of bone scintigraphy and FDG PET-CT for detecting bone metastases in lung cancer patients and the impact of these modalities in disease staging.
Methods: One hundred sixty-four lung cancer patients who had undergone both FDG PET-CT and bone scintigraphy within 14 days were included into this study. The analysis of FDG PET-CT and bone scintigraphy was carried out patient- and lesion-based.
Results: One hundred twenty-one patients were negative and 43 patients positive for bone metastases. FDG PET-CT found bone metastases in 42/43 patients and bone scintigraphy in 38/43 patients. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of FDG PET-CT and bone scintigraphy for detecting bone metastases were 97.7%, 100% and 99.4%, and 87.8%, 97.5% and 94.2%, respectively. FDG PET-CT identified 430 bone metastases and bone scintigraphy 246 bone metastases. Skull was the only region where bone scintigraphy identified more lesions than FDG PET-CT. Based on both scintigraphic modalities disagreement concerning disease stage was found in 3 patients.
Conclusion: FDG PET-CT yielded a higher sensitivity, specificity and accuracy than bone scintigraphy for identifying bone metastases in lung cancer patients. FDG PET-CT thus can be recommended for initial staging of lung cancer patients without applying bone scintigraphy for the detection of bone metastases.