Oral Oncol
-
Current guidelines recommend chest computed tomography (CT) with locoregional CT/magnetic resonance imaging for patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron-emission tomography (PET)/CT is suggested for stage III-IV patients. However, whole body screening with 18F-FDG PET/CT may provide better detection of distant metastases and synchronous cancer than conventional imaging. We evaluated the utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT in detecting distant metastasis and synchronous cancer. ⋯ 18F-FDG PET/CT detected more distant metastases and synchronous cancer than CXR + hnCT and more synchronous cancer than chest CT + hnCT.
-
Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) radiation oncologists (ROs) enjoy the immense pleasure of curing patients, working within a large multidisciplinary team to effectively deliver curative intent treatment whilst also aiming to minimise late treatment toxicity. Secondary analyses of large-scale HNC clinical trials have shown the critical impact of the quality of radiotherapy plans, where protocol non-compliant plans have yielded inferior survival rates approximating 20%. ⋯ International consensus guidelines to standardise or benchmark best practice with respect to the RT-QA process in HNC are needed. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of the RT-QA process in the HNC treatment process and to make some recommendations for its inclusion in both clinical trials and routine clinical practice.