The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of PET-CT in the diagnosis and treatment of long bone infections following trauma. All patients referred to the limb reconstruction service for management of non-unions were treated by the same protocol. PET-CT with FDG was performed in all patients to assess if the non-union site was infected and if so, the extent of the infection. Those requiring operative management were treated in a 2-stage manner. Initially with debridement based on PET-CT; sampling for microbiology and histology; and then Teicoplanin and Ciprofloxacin. If samples were positive then the patients were treated for a total of 6 weeks with antibiotics based on microbiology advice before undergoing definitive fixation. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV were then calculated for PET-CTs ability to predict presence of infection using extended cultures and histology as the gold standard. 38 consecutive patients underwent surgery, 24 male and 14 female. 24 were deemed infected on extended culture or histology. PET-CT was anecdotally found to be extremely useful at determining the extent of infection to plan debridement. PPV 0.83 NPV 0.89 Sensitivity 0.96 Specificity 0.61 As well as providing unique ability to demarcate areas of bony infection in the presence of metalwork, the ability to detect or exclude infection was exceptional. This is a test, however, which is operator dependent and requires a skilled Nuclear Radiology Consultant to accurately interpret images. In our relatively small pilot study the accuracy improved noticeably over one year. PET-CT has potential to be a powerful tool in the diagnosis and treatment of long bone infection following trauma and certainly warrants further investigation.
To assess the role of Tc-99m labelled anti granulocyte monoclonal antibody Fab' fragment (Sulesomab) in the diagnosis of bone and joint infections. We analysed the results of 95 patients referred with a clinical suspicion of bone and joint infections. There were 47 male and 48 female patients with a mean age of 60 years (range=16 to 89). Referrals were made for suspected infection of prosthetic total joint replacements (38), long bones (32), primary joints (12) and feet (13). Sulesomab imaging was done with 650 MBq of 99mTcSulesomab. The final diagnosis was determined by conclusive microbiology, culture and/or histology, intra-operative findings, aspiration, complementary investigations like CT/MRI and long term clinical follow-up. The findings of 99mTcSulesomab images were compared with the clinical outcome to arrive at the decision of True Positive/ False positive/ True negative/ False negative results. Using the above definitions sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of 99mTcSulesomab for suspected bone and joint infection were calculated.Aim
Methods
