Impact of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/computed tomography in staging of patients with gallbladder cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (CT) has proven its efficacy in various malignancies; however, currently it is not used routinely for the management of gallbladder carcinoma (GBCa). So, we tried to review and analyze the impact of FDG PET/CT in the staging workup of gallbladder carcinoma.

METHODS

Databases like PubMed, SCOPUS, and EMBASE were searched for published original studies on F-18 FDG PET/CT in staging workup gallbladder carcinoma till December 2020. The included studies were assessed using the Revised Tool for the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) checklist. A random-effect model was used for calculating pooled estimates of sensitivity and specificity. They were demonstrated in Forest plots. I2 statistic was used to assess heterogeneity in the studies.

RESULTS

There is a paucity of literature with respect to the role of FDG PET/CT in GBCa. With the available data, the pooled sensitivity and specificity of 18F-FDG PET/CT for detection of local disease estimates of 96% [95% confidence interval (CI), 90-99%] and 91% (95% CI, 77-98%), respectively. Pooled sensitivity and specificity for detection of metastatic disease are 95% (95% CI, 88-98%) and 97% (95% CI, 90-100%), respectively. For nodal disease, these values are 75% (95% CI, 53-90%) and 91% (95% CI, 77-98%), respectively. Besides this, FDG PET/CT findings have changed the management in significant proportion of patients.

CONCLUSION

With the limited data available currently, we found that 18F-FDG PET/CT is a quite accurate noninvasive tool in staging the workup of GBCa. However, further large multicentre trials are necessary for the generation of stronger evidence in this regard.