Differential Diagnosis of Hemophagocytic Syndrome by (18)F-FDG PET/CT: A Meta-Analysis

Hemophagocytic syndrome (HPS) is a rare disease in clinical practice, and there are often cases of delayed diagnosis. At present, researchers have applied (18)F-FDG PET/CT in the differential diagnosis of HPS, but no consensus has been formed. Therefore, this study aims to systematically evaluate the application value of (18)F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of HPS patients. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wangfang database (Wangfang), and Chinese Biomedical Network (CBM) were searched to collect the relevant studies of (18)F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of HPS. Data from the articles were screened and extracted for meta-analysis using Stata16.0 software. A total of 10 retrospective studies, including 300 patients, were included in this meta-analysis. The meta-analysis results showed that the pooled sensitivity was 0.82 (95% CI: 0.67–0.95), specificity was 0.72 (95% CI: 0.51–0.86), positive likelihood ratio was 2.89 (95% CI: 1.46–5.75), positive likelihood ratio was 0.25 (95% CI: 0.12–0.54), diagnostic odds ratio was 2.89 (95% CI: 1.46–5.75), and AUC was 0.84 (95% CI: 0.81–0.87). The SUVmax in the liver, spleen, lymph nodes, and bone marrow of HPS patients was greater than 2.5, and the SUVmax in the spleen, lymph nodes, and bone marrow of malignant HPS patients was higher than that of benign HPS patients. The difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). According to the existing literature evidence, (18)F-FDG PET/CT is an effective method for diagnosing HPS.