ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2018 June;62(2):200-8

DOI: 10.23736/S1824-4785.16.02746-1

Copyright © 2014 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Long-term results confirmed that 18F-FDG-PET/CT was an excellent diagnostic modality for early detection of vascular grafts infection

Saziye KARACA ¹ ✉, Olivier RAGER ², Osman RATIB ², Afksendiyos KALANGOS ¹

¹ Service of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; ² Service of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

BACKGROUND: We sought to evaluate the potential role of positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) for the detection and diagnosis of potential infections of vascular grafts using combining metabolic (i.e., radioactive fluorine-fluoro-D-deoxyglucose [18F-FDG]) PET with morphological (CT) information and investigate long-term capability.
METHODS: Seventeen patients with suspected vascular-graft infection underwent thoracic-abdominal-pelvic FDG PET combined with contrast-enhanced CT using a hybrid PET-CT scanner providing co-registered PET and CT images.
RESULTS: In this retrospect study, we suspected graft infection in 14 of 17 patients detected using PET-CT and increased the maximal uptake of 18F-FDG around the grafts. Other vascular localizations were not observed. All patients with positive PET-CT results underwent redo-surgery, and the infection was ultimately confirmed using microbiological testing in 12 of 14 patients. Follow-up time was median of 58 months (range 36-73 months) for all 17 patients. In these patients, there was no further evidence of graft infection found on clinical and imaging follow-up.
CONCLUSIONS: This is first investigation presenting long-term follow-up, which confirmed that 18F-FDG-PET/CT is an excellent diagnostic modality for suspected vascular graft infection. 18F-FDG PET-CT exhibited a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 71.4% for the detection of vascular-graft infection.

KEY WORDS: Positron-emission tomography - Tomography, X-ray computed - Diagnosis