ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Imaging and Image-directed Interventions
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1519107
Comparative Study of Total-body PET and PET/MR in the Diagnosis of Liver Metastases
Provisionally accepted
- Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China
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Objective: To compare the diagnostic differences between total-body PET/CT (positron emission tomography/computed tomography) and PET/MR (positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance) in detecting liver metastases.The study analyzed data from patients with malignancies who underwent both conventional total-body PET/CT and liver PET/MR imaging between June 2020 and December 2020. A total of 20 patients with confirmed liver metastases were included, 9 of whom also underwent 2-hour delayed imaging of the liver. Paired t-tests were used to compare the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and tissue-to-background ratio (T/B) between PET/MR and conventional total-body PET/CT. Wilcoxon non-parametric tests were used to compare the standardized uptake value maximum (SUVmax) between the two imaging modalities. The McNemar test was employed to assess diagnostic performance differences between PET/MR and conventional total-body PET/CT, as well as between PET/MR and 2-hour delayed total-body PET/CT.Results: A total of 20 patients with confirmed liver metastases were included, with 39 suspicious lesions identified, and 27 lesions confirmed as liver metastases through biopsy or follow-up. The sensitivity of total-body PET/CT was 66.7% (18/27), while PET/MR had a sensitivity of 96.3% (26/27). The specificity of total-body PET/CT was 83.3% (10/12), and PET/MR had a specificity of 91.7% (11/12). The McNemar test revealed a significant difference in diagnostic performance between the two modalities, with PET/MR outperforming conventional total-body PET/CT (p=0.016). In 9 patients who underwent 2-hour delayed total-body PET/CT, 10 suspicious lesions were identified, 8 of which were confirmed as liver metastases. The sensitivity of delayed total-body PET/CT was 75% (6/8), and PET/MR had a sensitivity of 87.5% (7/8). Both modalities had a specificity of 50% (1/2). The McNemar test for delayed imaging showed no statistically significant difference (p=1). Wilcoxon non-parametric testing showed that the SUVmax of total-body PET/CT was significantly higher than that of PET/MR (Z=-2.355, p=0.019). Paired t-tests indicated no significant differences in SNR (t=-1.565, p=0.156) and T/B ratio (t=-1.689, p=0.115) between the two modalities.Total-body PET/CT demonstrated higher detector sensitivity compared to PET/MR. However, PET/MR showed superior diagnostic performance for detecting liver metastases. The delayed 2-hour PET/CT imaging could partially compensate for the lower diagnostic efficiency of conventional PET/CT compared to PET/MR.
Keywords: positron emission tomography/computed tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, liver metastasis, PET-CT, PET-MRI
Received: 29 Oct 2024; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 cao, You, li, zhang and xuan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: ang xuan, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, 450000, Henan Province, China
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