Performance Spect-Ct and Angio-Ct for Diagnosis of Pulmonary Thromboembolism in a Tertiary Oncology Centre

Abstract

Introduction/Background: Pulmonar thromboembolism (PTE) is characterized by obstruction of pulmonary circulation by blood clots and is commonly observed in hospitalized cancer patients. It is diagnosed using thoracic ANGIO-TC and pulmonary inhalation/perfusion (I/P) techniques by SPECT-CT3,6,7,9. The aim of this study is to analyse the performance of these two techniques in the diagnosis of PTE and to evaluate the concordance between their results patients profiles, and impact on clinical medical management. Methods: A descriptive, retrospective, quantitative, qualitative and unicentric cohort study; was carried out by analysing the ANGIO-CT and I/P tests by SPECT-CT of the population of câncer patients in a tertiary oncological institution from January 2015 to May 2018. A total of 410 tests in 363 patients were analysed. Results: Three hundred and thirty five patients underwent ANGIO-CT, 75 underwent I/P by SPECT-CT and 47 patients both. The types of cancer that showed association with the diagnosis of PTE were lung, pancreas and brain cancers. Lung cancer showed the highest association with suspected and diagnosed PTE. Discussion: Diagnostic results and clinical managment were comparable for both SPECT-CT and ANGIO-CT. Both methods have proven to be reliable and highly accurate for the diagnosis of PTE in cancer patients. Conclusion: The SPECT-CT has shown great accuracy for the diagnosis of negative PTE and may be preferable and more indicated to rule out PTE in cancer patients due to its lower radiation, but for the diagnosis of positive PTE the chest ANGIO-TC is even more indicated.