The Egyptian Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine (Mar 2022)

Diagnostic value of FDG-PET/CT in fever of unknown origin

  • Maha Omar Mohamed Elshalakani,
  • Nivine Chalabi,
  • Hanan Mohamed Hanafy,
  • Amal Ibrahim Ahmed Othman

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s43055-022-00725-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 53, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract Background Fever of unknown origin (FUO) is a challenging clinical problem in medicine that needs collaboration of various diagnostic techniques to establish the accurate diagnosis. We evaluated the diagnostic performance of 18F-FDG PET/CT in patients who presented themselves with FUO. Our study included 40 patients with FUO who underwent PET/CT examination and their results were compared to the results of laboratory, histopathological, microbiological investigations and/or response to therapy. Results The final diagnosis included malignancy in 20 patients (50%), infectious causes in 7 patients (17.5%) and non-infectious inflammatory causes in 6 patients (15%). Fever resolved without diagnosis in 4 patients (10%), while no definite diagnosis was reached in 3 patients (7%). PET/CT successfully contributed to diagnosis of 35 out of 40 patients with diagnostic accuracy of 87.5%. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of PET/CT in our study were 93.5%, 66.7%, 90.6% and 75%, respectively. Conclusion PET/CT is a useful tool to investigate and diagnose the cause of FUO. It provides information that can guide the treatment strategy of the patients.

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