Abstract:Objective To investigate the procedure, imaging features and clinical significance of CT virtual gastroscopy(CTVG) in the diagnosis of gastric carcinoma using bitilted CT scanning.
Methods Thirty patients and ten normal volunteers had bitilted CT scan using helical CT(GE lightspeed 16 CT). The patients and yolunteers were given bubblemaking powder by mouth and placed in a supine position on the CT table. CTVG and MPR images were obtained using the virtual dissection and reform of GE.
Results The appearances of the inner lesion and normal wall of the stomach on CTVG were similar to those on fiberoptic gastroscopy. The CTVG and MPR features of gastric cancer were focal or diffuse mural thickening, soft tissue mass, stenosis of stomach, cancerous ulcer, infiltration to adjacent tissues, and lymph node and distant metastases. In comparison with fiberoptic gastroscopy (as the gold standard), CTVG showed a diagnostic accuracy of 92.5%，a sensitivity of 93.3%, a specificity of 90.0%, a positive prediction value of 96.7%, and a negative prediction value of 81.8%.
Conclusions CTVG is a safe, reliable, noninvasive method for demonstrating the structure of normal and abnormal stomach, and is a good complementory method to conventional fiberoptic gastroscopy.