Articles

CHARACTERIZATION OF CONGENITAL LYMPHATIC AND BLOOD VASCULAR MALFORMATIONS IN THE HEAD AND NECK USING BLOOD POOL SCINTIGRAPHY AND SPECT

---

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness and diagnostic efficacy of blood pool (BP) scintigraphy and SPECT for characterizing congenital vascular malformations (CVMs) in the head and neck area. A total of 154 patients suspected of having head and neck CVMs underwent whole-body BP scintigraphy and head and neck BP SPECT using ^99mTc-labeled red blood cells. Based on SPECT findings, CVMs were classified into lymphatic malformation/non-(blood) vascular disease (LM/NVD, no distinct uptake), arterio-venous malformation (AVM, abnormal uptake in lesions and asymmetrically increased jugular vein uptakeon ipsilateral side), venous malformation (VM, strong uptake in lesions with symmetric jugular vein uptake), and veno-lymphaticmal formation (VLM, no or mild uptake on lesions with symmetric jugular vein uptake). The sensitivities and specificities of BPSPECT for diagnosing each subtype of head and neck CVM were 100% (13/13) and 97.1% (137/141) for LM/NVD, 61.1% (22/36) and 99.1% (117/118) for AVM, 91.7% (88/96) and 79.3% (46/58) for VM, and 55.6% (5/9) and 93.7% (136/145) in VLM, respectively. The overall accuracy for characterizing CVMs by head and neck BP SPECT was 83.1% (128/154). In conclusion, BP SPECT is a useful method for classifying CVMs in the head and neck area due to its high diagnostic efficacy.

Keywords: blood pool scintigraphy, blood pool SPECT, 99mTc red blood cells, congenital lymphatic malformation, vascular malformation, head and neck

How to Cite:

Lee, J., Choi, J., Kim, Y., Kim, D., Kim, Y., Kim, K., Hyun, S., Lee, K. & Kim, B., (2010) “CHARACTERIZATION OF CONGENITAL LYMPHATIC AND BLOOD VASCULAR MALFORMATIONS IN THE HEAD AND NECK USING BLOOD POOL SCINTIGRAPHY AND SPECT”, Lymphology 43(4), 149-157.