Comparative voxel-based dosimetry with pre-treatment Tc-99m SPECT/CT and post-treatment Y-90 PET/MRI for radioembolization with Y-90 microspheres

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences between voxel-based dosimetry and the mean absorbed doses calculated with pre-treatment Tc-99 m-MAA SPECT/CT and post-treatment Y-90 PET/MR images. We also sought to present a detailed comparison of dose-volume histograms (DVHs) calculated from pre- and post-treatment imaging.

Methods

A total of 47 treatments and 41 patients were included in the analysis as six of the treatments were retreatments of the six patients. Multicompartment and voxel-based dosimetry were performed with pre-treatment Tc-99m-MAA SPECT/CT and Y-90 PET/MRI. Correlation coefficients between the two imaging methods for the mean absorbed dose of tumor, whole liver normal tissue, perfused normal tissue, T/N ratio and tumor D10, D50 and D90 values were calculated. Additionally, differences between these values were also evaluated with Bland–Altman plots.

Results

Pre-treatment Tc-99m-MAA SPECT/CT accurately predicted the dose values for healthy liver parenchyma calculated with Y-90 PET/MRI but showed lower accuracy in predicting T/N ratio and tumor doses. There were significant variations in tumor-absorbed doses for both glass and resin microspheres. Additionally, D90 values were higher when calculated with SPECT/CT than with PET/MRI, whereas D10 values were higher in PET/MRI compared to SPECT/CT.

Conclusion

The findings in our study suggest that Tc-99m-MAA SPECT/CT had higher accuracy in predicting the dose to the healthy liver parenchyma compared to the tumor, maintaining its importance in treatment planning.