Strontium 87m scanning of the sacroiliac joints in ankylosing spondylitis.

Limited Diagnostic Value of Unilateral Sacroiliitis in Scintigraphy in Assessing Axial Spondyloarthritis

“…Our findings are in concordance with the few scintigraphy studies that have so far reported on unilateral sacroiliitis (6, including 104 patients with axial SpA and 36 controls) [7][8][9][10][11][12] . Sensitivities of unilateral sacroiliitis in these studies were low, ranging from 6.3% 10 to 33.3% 12 , while specificities were high, ranging between 89.5% 8 and 94.1% 7 , resulting in a pooled LR of 2.1.…”

The diagnostic value of scintigraphy in assessing sacroiliitis in ankylosing spondylitis: a systematic literature research

“…In only one study radioactive strontium-87m was used as a radiotracer 34. In all other 24 studies included in this analysis radioactive technetium-99m was used, mostly labelled to methylene-di-phosphonate.…”

“…In all other 23 studies that were included into the analysis reference values of the SIJ:S ratio were given for the definition of positive versus negative scintigraphy findings with a mean value for the cut-off of 1.39 (SD 0.18). In 12 these 23 studies the cut-off was even more precisely defined by calculating the mean radiotracer uptake in controls plus twice the standard deviation,24 28 34 36 – 44 here the mean tracer uptake was 1.48 (SD 0.18). Two studies even used different age groups to define reference values 42 45…”

“…AS, ankylosing spondylitis; MLBP, mechanical low back pain; NA, not available.*AS: information about disease duration given in six studies,23 28 34 37 46 48 about gender distribution in nine studies,28 34–38 40 46 48 about age given in 10 studies,23 28 34 – 38 40 46 48 and about HLA-B27 in seven studies 23 24 28 35 37 38 47

†Suspected sacroiliitis: information about disease duration given in two studies (mean disease duration 2.3 years53 and 3.8 years46), about gender distribution in five studies,29 42 44 51 53 about age in five studies,29 31 46 51 53 and about HLA-B27 in five studies 24 29 42 50 52

…”

18F-Fluoride PET/CT for detection of sacroiliitis in ankylosing spondylitis

“…Conventional scintigraphy with bone-seeking tracers such as 99m Tc-labelled diphosphonates have been used for decades in patients with AS [16]. Recently, a systematic literature review including 25 articles showed that scintigraphy reaches sensitivities of 52% in patients with established AS and 49.4% in patients with probable sacroiliitis [17].…”