• Feng Wang, Wei Fang, Bin Lv, Jin-Guo Lu, Chang-Ming Xiong, Xin-Hai Ni, and Zuo-Xiang He.
• Department of Nuclear Medicine, Cardiovascular Institute and Fu Wai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
• Clin Nucl Med. 2009 Jul 1; 34 (7): 424-7.

PurposeTo compare the diagnostic efficacy of lung perfusion scans combined with ventilation (V/Q) scans and/or chest radiography (CR) with contrast-enhanced multislice spiral CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) in diagnosing pulmonary embolism (PE).Materials And MethodsEighty-two consecutive patients with suspected PE underwent CTPA, lung perfusion scan, and CR. Of them, 28 patients underwent V/Q scans. The final diagnosis was made using a composite reference test.ResultsThe overall sensitivity and specificity were 89.2% and 92.1% for V/Q scan or perfusion scan combined with CR, and 97.3% and 97.4% for CTPA. For the 28 patients with V/Q scan, the sensitivity and specificity were 91.7% and 92.9% for V/Q scan, and 91.7% and 100.0% for CTPA. The segmental agreement rate between perfusion scan and CTPA was 69.5% (kappa = 0.30, P < 0.05). The perfusion scan revealed significantly more subsegmental abnormalities than CTPA (59 vs. 10, chi2 test, P < 0.05).ConclusionsV/Q scan, perfusion scan combined with CR and CTPA all show high efficacy in diagnosing PE. V/Q scan or perfusion scan combined with CR is as accurate as CTPA.

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