In response to Letter regarding “Meta-analysis of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of infective endocarditis”

Excerpt

We thank Dr Scholtens for his interest in our work and understand his concern for ostensible discrepancies in the reported data from published literature and our pooled analyses. When pooling data for our meta-analysis, we had to ensure that each study included in our final analysis is addressing the same clinical question, so that comparable data are being pooled. There was inconsistency in included studies regarding inclusion or exclusion of possible cases of endocarditis and this is one reason for discordance in their reported and our calculated sensitivity and specificity. For all practical purposes, cases of both definite and possible endocarditis are managed similarly in clinical practice and therefore were included in our pooled estimates. Also, the values used to calculate the pooled sensitivity and specificity in a meta-analysis need to be based on n, as in number of patients, rather than the sensitivity and specificity values calculated in individual studies based on the foci of infection observed on PET scan (a single patient may have multiple foci of infection identified on PET scanning). These are the two primary reasons for discrepancies in our reporting noted by the correspondent. …