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Improved treatment outcomes with 18 F‐FDG PET/CT for patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
Author(s) -
Haerle Stephan K.,
Soyka M. B.,
Schmid D. T.,
Ahmad N.,
Huber G. F.,
Crook D. W.,
Hany T. F.
Publication year - 2012
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.21887
Subject(s) - medicine , head and neck squamous cell carcinoma , basal cell , head and neck , nuclear medicine , cohort , overall survival , head and neck cancer , stage (stratigraphy) , chemoradiotherapy , radiology , positron emission tomography , oncology , radiation therapy , surgery , paleontology , biology
Background The aim of this study was to assess the impact of 18 F‐fluoro‐2‐deoxy‐ D ‐glucose ( 18 F‐FDG) PET/CT on survival for patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma correlated with a matched patient cohort. Methods In all, disease in 58 patients was initially staged using 18 F‐FDG PET/CT. A case‐control analysis was done with 63 patients who disease was staged without 18 F‐FDG‐PET/CT. Results Disease‐specific survival (DSS) and overall survival (OS) did not show significant differences between both groups. Statistical analysis revealed no difference in DSS and OS between the 2 groups for patients treated by radiochemotherapy ( p = .975 and p = .671). In the analysis of survival in patients treated by a combined approach (surgery + radiochemotherapy), a significant difference in favor of patients evaluated by 18 F‐FDG PET/CT was found ( p = .05 and p = .027). Conclusions Addition of 18 F‐FDG PET/CT in patients treated by surgery and conformal radiochemotherapy improves outcome. This may be due to the more comprehensive topographic orientation of the primary tumor for the surgeon. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck, 2012