Table 3. Relative advantages and disadvantages of various imaging modalities for the diagnosis and follow-up of skull-base osteomyelitis (in analogy to van Kroonenburgh et al. [31]).
| Features | Radiological techniques | Nuclear medicine techniques | Hybrid techniques | ||
| CT | MRI | SPECT (Tc99m-MDP) | FDG-PET/CT | FDG-PET/MRI | |
| Bone erosion | ++ | − | − | + | − |
| (Bone) metabolism | − | − | + | + | + |
| Soft tissue | ± | + | − | ± | + |
| Spatial resolution | + | ++ | − | ± | + |
| Radiation exposure | − | + | − | − | ± |
| Follow-up | − | − | − | ± | + |
CT, computed tomography; FDG-PET, fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging;
SPECT (Tc99m-MDP), single-photon-emission computed tomography (technetium-99m-methylene diphosphonate)