Table 2

Prospective series on the use of ¹⁸f-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) in the differential diagnosis of lung nodules or masses

First author [Ref.]	Year	n	Method of analysis	Sensitivity %	Specificity %	Accuracy %	Prevalence %
Sazon 30	1996	107	Visual	100	52	89	77
Lowe 31	1998	89	Visual	98	69	89	67
			Semiquantitative	92	90	91
Duhaylongsod 32	1995	87	Semiquantitative	97	82	92	68
Gupta 33	1996	61	Semiquantitative	93	88	92	74
Nackaerts 34	1997	52	Semiquantitative	94	82	90	67
Patz 35	1993	51	Semiquantitative	89	100	92	65
Bury 36	1996	50	Visual	100	88	96	66
Slosman 37	1993	36	Visual	94	60	89	86
Dewan 38	1993	30	Visual	95	80	90	67
Kubota 39	1990	22	Semiquantitative	83	90	86	55
Gupta 40	1992	20	Semiquantitative	100	100	100	65
Gupta 41	1998	19	Visual	100	100	100	63
			Semiquantitative	83	100	89

Visual: visual interpretation on whole-body images; Semiquantitative: using a threshold of a semiquantitative measure of FDG-uptake (e.g. standardized uptake value); prevalence: proportion of malignant cases in the total group of studied nodules.