The impact of post-radioiodine therapy SPECT/CT on early risk stratification in differentiated thyroid cancer; a bi-institutional study

// Szabina Szujo 1 , Livia Sira 2 , Laszlo Bajnok 1 , Beata Bodis 1 , Ferenc Gyory 5 , Orsolya Nemes 1 , Karoly Rucz 1 , Peter Kenyeres 1 , Zsuzsanna Valkusz 6 , Krisztian Sepp 6 , Erzsebet Schmidt 3 , Zsuszanna Szabo 3 , Sarolta Szekeres 3 , Katalin Zambo 3 , Sandor Barna 4 , Endre V. Nagy 2 and Emese Mezosi 1 1 Ist Department of Medicine, University of Pecs, H-7624 Pecs, Hungary 2 Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, H-4012 Debrecen, Hungary 3 Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Pecs, H-7624 Pecs, Hungary 4 Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, H-4012 Debrecen, Hungary 5 Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary 6 Ist Department of Medicine, University of Szeged, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary Correspondence to: Emese Mezosi, email: mezosi.emese@pte.hu Keywords: differentiated thyroid cancer, radioiodine therapy, SPECT/CT, ATA risk classification, ETA risk classification Received: February 14, 2017      Accepted: July 18, 2017      Published: August 01, 2017 ABSTRACT Objective: SPECT/CT has numerous advantages over planar and traditional SPECT images. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of post-radioiodine therapy SPECT/CT of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) in early risk classification and in prediction of late prognosis. Patients and methods: 323 consecutive patients were investigated after their first radioiodine treatment (1100–3700 MBq). Both whole body scan and SPECT/CT images of the head, neck, chest and abdomen regions were taken 4–6 days after radioiodine therapy. Patients were re-evaluated 9–12 months later as well as at the end of follow up (median 37 months). Results: Post-radioiodine therapy SPECT/CT showed metastases in 22% of patients. Lymph node, lung and bone metastases were detected in 61, 13 and 5 patients, respectively, resulting in early reclassification of 115 cases (36%). No evidence of disease was found in 251 cases at 9–12 months after radioiodine treatment and 269 patients at the end of follow-up. To predict residual disease at the end of follow-up, the sensitivities, specificities and diagnostic accuracies of the current risk classification systems and SPECT/CT were: ATA: 77%, 47% and 53%; ETA: 70%, 62% and 64%; SPECT/CT: 61%, 88% and 83%, respectively. There was no difference between cohorts of the two institutions when data were analyzed separately. Conclusions: Based on our bi-institutional experience, the accuracy of post-radioiodine SPECT/CT outweighs that of the currently used ATA and ETA risk classification systems in the prediction of long-term outcome of DTC.