Diagnostic Accuracy of 18F-FDG-PET in Patients with Testicular Cancer: a Meta-analysis

Objective: Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG-PET) is a new techniquefor identifying different malignant tumors using different uptake values between tumor cells and normal tissues.Here we assessed the diagnostic accuracy of 18F-FDG-PET in patients with testicular cancer by pooling data ofexisting trials in a meta-analysis.
Methods: PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase and Cochrane Central Trials databaseswere searched and studies published in English relating to the diagnostic value of FDG-PET for testicularcancer were collected. The summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was used to examine theFDG-PET accuracy.
Results: A total of 16 studies which included 957 examinations in 807 patients (median age,31.1 years) were analyzed. A meta-analysis was performed to combine the sensitivity and specificity and their95% confidence intervals (CIs), from diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), positive likelihood ratios (PLR), negativelikelihood ratio (NLR). SROC were derived to demonstrate the diagnostic accuracy of FDG-PET for testicularcancer. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.75 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.70-0.80) and 0.87 (95%CI, 0.84-0.89), respectively. The pooled DOR was 35.6 (95% CI, 12.9-98.3). The area under the curve (AUC) was0.88. The pooled PLR and pooled NLR were 7.80 (95% CI, 3.73-16.3) and 0.31 (95% CI, 0.23-0.43), respectively.
Conclusion: In patients with testicular cancer, 18F-FDG-PET demonstrated a high SROC area, and could be apotentially useful tool if combined with other imaging methods such as MRI and CT. Nevertheless, the literaturefocusing on the use of 18F-FDG-PET in this setting still remains limited.