Characterization of congenital lymphatic and blood vascular malformations in the head and neck using blood pool scintigraphy and spect.

The purpose of this study was toinvestigate the usefulness and diagnosticefficacy of blood pool (BP) scintigraphy andSPECT for characterizing congenital vascularmalformations (CVMs) in the head and neckarea. A total of 154 patients suspected ofhaving head and neck CVMs underwentwhole-body BP scintigraphy and head andneck BP SPECT using 99mTc-labeled redblood cells. Based on SPECT findings, CVMswere classified into lymphatic malformation/non-(blood) vascular disease (LM/NVD, nodistinct uptake), arterio-venous malformation(AVM, abnormal uptake in lesions andasymmetrically increased jugular vein uptakeon ipsilateral side), venous malformation(VM, strong uptake in lesions with symmetricjugular vein uptake), and veno-lymphaticmalformation (VLM, no or mild uptake onlesions with symmetric jugular vein uptake).The sensitivities and specificities of BPSPECT for diagnosing each subtype of headand neck CVM were 100% (13/13) and 97.1%(137/141) for LM/NVD, 61.1% (22/36) and99.1% (117/118) for AVM, 91.7% (88/96) and79.3% (46/58) for VM, and 55.6% (5/9) and93.7% (136/145) in VLM, respectively. Theoverall accuracy for characterizing CVMs byhead and neck BP SPECT was 83.1%(128/154). In conclusion, BP SPECT is auseful method for classifying CVMs in thehead and neck area due to its high diagnosticefficacy.