Diagnostic Value of ^sup 18^F-FDG PET/CT in Detecting Local Recurrent Colorectal Cancer: A Pooled Analysis of 26 Individual Studies

Fluorine 18 fluorodeoxyglucose (^sup 18^F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) has emerged as a new modality for colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. The aim of this meta-analysis was to assess the diagnostic value of ^sup 18^F-FDG PET/CT in detecting local recurrence in patients with CRC. We searched PubMed, Medline, Embase, and ISI databases to collect articles in English that evaluated the diagnostic value of ^sup 18^F-FDG PET/CT in patients with CRC. Two reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality of each study using the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies tool. The data were analyzed using Meta-Disc (Version 1.4) and Stata (Version 12.0) software. We estimated the sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC). A total of 26 studies were included. When all the eligible studies included, the pooled sensitivity and specificity for ^sup 18^F-FDG PET/CT in detecting CRC were 0.94 (95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.92-0.96) and 0.94 (95 % CI 0.93-0.95), respectively. The pooled PLR and NLR were 14.39 (95 % CI 7.37-28.09) and 0.08 (95 % CI 0.06-0.12), respectively. The DOR was 208.67 (95 % CI 109.56-397.44) and the area under the SROC curve was 0.9776. The overall diagnostic accuracy (Q* index) was 0.9329. ^sup 18^F-FDG PET/CT has good diagnostic performance in detecting local recurrence in patients with CRC. Further larger prospective studies are needed to establish its value for detecting local recurrence of CRC cancer patients.