• Tomonori Kanda, Kazuhiro Kitajima, Yuko Suenaga, Jyunya Konishi, Ryohei Sasaki, Koichi Morimoto, Miki Saito, Naoki Otsuki, Ken-Ichi Nibu, and Kazuro Sugimura.
• Department of Radiology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan; Department of Radiology, Hyogo Cancer Center, Hyogo, Japan.
• Eur J Radiol. 2013 Nov 1; 82 (11): 2005-10.

PurposeTo assess the clinical value of retrospective image fusion of neck MRI and (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) PET for locoregional extension and nodal staging of neck cancer.Materials And MethodsThirty patients with carcinoma of the oral cavity or hypopharynx underwent PET/CT and contrast-enhanced neck MRI for initial staging before surgery including primary tumor resection and neck dissection. Diagnostic performance of PET/CT, MRI, and retrospective image fusion of PET and MRI (fused PET/MRI) for assessment of the extent of the primary tumor (T stage) and metastasis to regional lymph nodes (N stage) was evaluated.ResultsAccuracy for T status was 87% for fused PET/MRI and 90% for MRI, thus proving significantly superior to PET/CT, which had an accuracy of 67% (p=0.041 and p=0.023, respectively). Accuracy for N status was 77% for both fused PET/MRI and PET/CT, being superior to MRI, which had an accuracy of 63%, although the difference was not significant (p=0.13). On a per-level basis, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for detection of nodal metastasis were 77%, 96% and 93% for both fused PET/MRI and PET/CT, compared with 49%, 99% and 91% for MRI, respectively. The differences for sensitivity (p=0.0026) and accuracy (p=0.041) were significant.ConclusionFused PET/MRI combining the individual advantages of MRI and PET is a valuable technique for assessment of staging neck cancer.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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