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Carcinoma of unknown primary in the head and neck: Comparison between positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT
Author(s) -
Keller Florian,
Psychogios Georgios,
Linke Rainer,
Lell Michael,
Kuwert Torsten,
Iro Heinrich,
Zenk Johannes
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
head and neck
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.012
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1097-0347
pISSN - 1043-3074
DOI - 10.1002/hed.21635
Subject(s) - medicine , positron emission tomography , nuclear medicine , pet ct , occult , radiology , head and neck cancer , pathology , radiation therapy , alternative medicine
Background Comparison of the diagnostic validity of positron emission tomography (PET) alone with integrated PET and CT (PET/CT) in the search for occult primary tumors in patients with cancer of unknown primary (CUP) site in the head and neck. Methods Thirty‐nine consecutive patients with clinical CUP were investigated with PET and 38 patients with PET/CT. After initial diagnostic panendoscopy and histological confirmation of the cervical lymph node metastasis, either PET or PET/CT scanning was performed. Results Integrated PET/CT had a significantly higher overall detection rate than dedicated PET alone (55.2% vs 30.8%; p = .039) and positive prediction rate (93.3% vs 46.1%; p = .01). Conclusion Integrated PET/CT showed to be superior to PET in the detection of the primary site of clinically occult tumors in CUP syndrome. However, a negative result should still be investigated further by means of panendoscopy with tonsillectomy and blind biopsies. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck, 2011