ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate 99Tcm-MIBI imaging in patients with hyperparathyroidism and its correlation with serum intact PTH level. Methods Seventy patients with suspicious hyperparathyroidism underwent 99Tcm-MIBI imaging and serum intact PTH measurement. Abnormal increased uptake lesion appeared at early phase and even more clearly at delayed phase was considered as the positive by 99Tcm-MIBI imaging. A cut-off value of PTH ＞ 88 ng/L was taken as the criteria for hyperparathyroidism diagnosis. The diagnostic efficacy of 99Tcm-MIBI imaging combined with serum PTH measurement was assessed according to post-surgical histopathology or clinical follow-up. For those operated patients, Pearson correlation coefficient between serum PTH and the gland volume was calculated. Results Hyperparathyroidism was confirmed in 38 patients by histopathology (n = 36) or follow-up (n = 2). The overall diagnostic accuracy of 99Tcm-MIBI imaging was 90.0% (63/70), in which the accuracy was 80.0% (12/15) for patients with normal serum PTH and 92.7% (51/55) for those with elevated serum PTH. False positive 99Tcm-MIBI imaging were found in 3 patients with normal serum PTH. The diagnostic accuracy of abnormally high serum PTH combined with 99Tcm-MIBI imaging was 94.3% (66/70). There was a positive correlation between serum PTH level and the volume of pathologic parathyroid glands (r = 0.782, P ＜ 0.001 ). Conclusions Serum PTH measurement may help to improve the diagnostic accuracy of 99Tcm-MIBI imaging in patients with hyperparathyroidism.