Gallium-68 citrate PET/CT for diagnosis and treatment response assessment of infections - Prospective study.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility of Ga-68 citrate PET/CT imaging for diagnosing infection and for the assessment of treatment response. The scan interpretation was based on visual comparison of uptake of Ga-68 citrate in the region of interest which was compared to the normal side / adjacent soft tissue / blood pool. Semi-quantitative parameter maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) was retrospectively analysed as well. The PET/CT findings were correlated with tissue diagnosis, clinical symptoms, biochemical parameters like C- reactive protein (CRP), Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and Total leucocyte count (TLC) and other imaging modalities with a statistically significant association with inflammatory markers CRP (p = 0.001) and ESR (p = 0.07). Tissue diagnosis was considered the gold standard and out of the 43 patients included in the study, 28 had a tissue diagnosis. Sensitivity, specificity, positive, and negative predictive values were calculated at 100%, 66.6%, 85%, and 100%. Ga-68 citrate is a promising tool for assessing the presence of skeletal/soft tissue infections for diagnosis and treatment response assessment, significantly impacting clinical decision-making in accurately treating patients and surgical planning.