Clinical application of 99mTc-HYNIC-TOC SPECT/CT in diagnosing and monitoring of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms

• DOI: 10.1007/s12149-018-1266-8
• Publication Date: 2018-06-20T07:54:57Z
• Authors: Junyan Xu; Yi Li; Xiaoping Xu; Jiangang Zhang; Yingjian Zhang; Xianjun Yu; Dan Huang
• Keywords: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor

Our aim of this research was to determine the value of SPECT/CT with 99mTc-HYNIC-TOC for evaluation of the pancreatic masses which were suspected as neuroendocrine neoplasms and follow-up of patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms.We retrospectively analyzed 184 patients who performed 99mTc-HYNIC-TOC SPECT/CT. All the patients were divided into two groups: one for assessment of diagnostic efficiency for pancreatic suspected masses (n = 140) and another for monitoring recurrence after surgery (n = 44). The image findings acquired at 2 h postinjection were compared to final diagnoses from pathological results and clinical follow-up. Then, the correlation between ratios of tumor-to-background (TBR) and tumor grade was analyzed.In group 1, 95/140 (67.9%) patients were confirmed as neuroendocrine neoplasms including 85 neuroendocrine tumors and 10 neuroendocrine carcinomas. Patient-based analysis showed that the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of diagnosing neuroendocrine neoplasms with SPECT/CT were 81.1, 84.4 and 82.1%. There was significant difference of TBRs among G1, G2 and G3 (F = 3.175, P = 0.048). In group 2, 22/44 (50.0%) patients occurred metastasis mainly in liver. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of monitoring recurrence were 87.0, 100 and 93.2%.99mTc-HYNIC-TOC SPECT/CT is a reliable method of diagnosing and monitoring of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms, especially neuroendocrine tumors.