18 F-FDG PET/CT as a screening method for detecting second primary malignancy in patients with head and neck cancer

Aim The aim of this study was to analyze the ability of combined 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET/CT) to detect additional primary malignancies in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC).

Material and Methods A retrospective study on 120 patients with initial HNC diagnosed between 2015-2016 was performed to analyze for the presence of second malignancy. Patients with previous untreated HNC underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT for staging and detection of additional primary tumor. Of them 116 patients had squamous cell carcinoma and 4 patients had other malignancies. All patients with suspected for second cancer on PET/CT findings underwent further endoscopy and or biopsy, and imaging.

Results Total 120 patients were analysed, there were 21 females and 99 males. Eight patients had second primary cancer: 7 patients had synchronous tumor, 1 patient had metachronous cancer. Combined PET/CT correctly identified second primary malignancy in 8 of these 9 patients, there was 1 false positive Results. PET/CT had a sensitivity of 100 %, a specificity of 99.1 %, a positive predictive value 88.88 %, a negative predictive value 100 % and accuracy 99.16 % in detecting second primary tumors. All patients with visualized second malignancy were male with squamous cell carcinoma. The most frequent locations of the second tumors were colorectal region 50 %, renal 12.5 %, head and neck 12.5 %, thyroid gland 12.5 % and lung 12.5 %. Those with larynx cancer ranks first among patients with second primary cancer.

Conclusion We found that the non-invasive whole body FDG-PET/CT is useful as a primary screening method for detecting second primary malignancy.

Publikationsverlauf

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
10. Juni 2020