Abstract

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the role of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT(PET/CT) scan in suspected metastatic spine tumor.
Methods: Forty six patients were enrolled in this study. Inclusion criteria were decided as follows; prior cancer history, presentation with spinal symptoms such as back pain, sensory change, motor weakness and those who were taken both spinal MRI and PET/CT for the purpose of screening suspected metastatic spine lesions.
Results: Twenty six patients out of 46 patients had one or more lesions at MRI scan. Of them, twenty patients had hyper- metabolic lesions on PET/CT scans concordant with MRI lesions. In fifteen patients, neither MRI nor PET/CT scan revealed any abnormalities. The sensitivity of PET/CT scan was 80.0% and the specificity was 71.4%.
Conclusions: PET/CT combined with MRI seems to provide better sensitivity and specificity for discriminating suspected metastatic spine tumors than either one.

• Keywords: Metastatic spine tumor.¹⁸F-FDG PET.Magnetic resonance imaging