Acta oto-laryngologica
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Acta oto-laryngologica · Sep 2019
Clinical utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT for patients with recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Background: The accurate detection of distant metastases can facilitate appropriate treatment planning for patients with recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Objectives: We evaluated the role of 18F-FDG PET/CT for distant metastasis diagnosis and survival prediction in patients with recurrent HNSCC. Materials and methods: This study included 95 consecutive patients with recurrent HNSCC and salvage treatments. ⋯ After controlling for clinicopathological factors, a recurrent lesion with maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) >8.7 was identified as an independent predictor of poor overall survival (p = .001). Conclusions and significance:18F-FDG PET/CT or conventional imaging is comparable with regard to detecting distant metastases of recurrent HNSCC. However, 18F-FDG PET/CT may detect additional metastatic lesions in unusual distant sites and the recurrent lesion SUVmax may predict patient survival after salvage treatments.