A systematic review for the evidence of recommendations and guidelines in hybrid nuclear cardiovascular imaging

Abstract

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the level of evidence of expert recommendations and guidelines for clinical indications and procedurals in hybrid nuclear cardiovascular imaging. Methods From inception to August 2023, a PubMed literature analysis of the latest version of guidelines for clinical hybrid cardiovascular imaging techniques including SPECT(/CT), PET(/CT), and PET(/MRI) was performed in two categories: (1) for clinical indications for all-in primary diagnosis; subgroup in prognosis and therapy evaluation; and for (2) imaging procedurals. We surveyed to what degree these followed a standard methodology to collect the data and provide levels of evidence, and for which topic systematic review evidence was executed. Results A total of 76 guidelines, published between 2013 and 2023, were included. The evidence of guidelines was based on systematic reviews in 7.9% of cases, non-systematic reviews in 47.4% of cases, a mix of systematic and non-systematic reviews in 19.7%, and 25% of guidelines did not report any evidence. Search strategy was reported in 36.8% of cases. Strengths of recommendation were clearly reported in 25% of guidelines. The notion of external review was explicitly reported in 23.7% of cases. Finally, the support of a methodologist was reported in 11.8% of the included guidelines. Conclusion The use of evidence procedures for developing for evidence-based cardiovascular hybrid imaging recommendations and guidelines is currently suboptimal, highlighting the need for more standardized methodological procedures.

Splenic Embolism in Infective Endocarditis: A Systematic Review of the Literature with an Emphasis on Radiological and Histopathological Diagnoses

“…Focal splenic uptake corresponds to an abscess, which is more specific to IE (and was therefore been included in the Duke-ISCVID criteria published in 2023) [ 55 ], and has been reported in less than 10% of cases. The standardisation of 18 F-FDG PET/CT, as well as the way in which it is reported, needs to be improved in the future [ 56 ].…”