Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

MDPI, Journal of Clinical Medicine, 17(12), p. 5698, 2023

DOI: 10.3390/jcm12175698

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Prevalence of Incidental Findings Suspicious for Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis among Patients Undergoing Bone Scintigraphy: A Systematic Review and a Meta-Analysis

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Background: The myocardial uptake of bone-seeking tracers suspicious for transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CA) can be incidentally detected in patients undergoing bone scintigraphy for noncardiac reasons. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the prevalence of these scintigraphic findings. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was performed using two bibliographic databases (PubMed/MEDLINE and Cochrane Library), searching for articles related to the review question. Eligible articles were selected, and relevant data were extracted by two authors. The pooled prevalence of incidental findings suspicious for ATTR-CA among patients undergoing bone scintigraphy was calculated on a per-patient-based analysis using a random-effects model. The pooled measure was provided with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) values. Results: Among 219 records, 11 articles were selected for the systematic review and 10 for the meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of incidental findings suspicious for ATTR-CA was 1.1% (95% CI: 0.7–1.4%) with heterogeneity due to the characteristics of the included studies, patients, and index tests. These findings are more prevalent in older men. Conclusions: The prevalence of incidental findings of ATTR-CA among patients undergoing bone scintigraphy is low but not negligible. Nuclear medicine physicians should suggest, in the scintigraphic report, further clinical investigations when these findings are detected. Prospective studies are warranted.