Photo Credit: Babul Hosen

The following is a summary of “Detection of septic metastases in catheter-related Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia using 18FFDG-PET/CT: a before-and-after study,” published in the May 2025 issue of BMC Infectious Diseases by Verdejo et al. 

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to assess the detection rate of septic metastases in catheter-related Staphylococcus.aureus bacteremia (CR-SAB) episodes by [18F]FDG-PET/CT.  

They executed a before-and-after study of patients with CR-SAB at Hospital Clínic Barcelona, including all adults hospitalized from January 2006 to December 2022. The primary outcome was the detection of septic metastases before and after incorporating [18F]FDG-PET/CT into the diagnostic workflow in January 2020 whereas, the secondary outcomes included 30-day mortality, length of stay (LOS), and treatment duration.  

The results showed that 598 episodes of CR-SAB were included, with 100 episodes in the post-intervention period (2020–2022) and 498 in the pre-intervention period (2006–2019), and [18F]FDG-PET/CT was completed in 28% (28/100) of post-intervention episodes and 1.8% (9/498) in the pre-intervention period. After [18F] FDG-PET/CT implementation, the septic metastasis detection rate boosted (22% vs 11.2%, P=0.004), mainly due to pulmonary septic emboli (13% vs 2.4%, P<0.001) and osteoarticular seeding (7% vs 2.2%, P=0.019). Neither pulmonary septic emboli nor osteoarticular metastases impacted 30-day mortality (12% vs 10%, P=0.732 and 11.1% vs 10%, P=0.702, respectively). Patients with septic metastases had longer treatment durations (25.0 days vs 15.0 days, P<0.001).  

Investigators concluded that [18F]FDG-PET/CT use in patients with CR-SAB led to a more elevated rate of septic metastases diagnosis, primarily pulmonary and osteoarticular, but did not affect clinical outcomes. 

Source: bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-025-11055-6