Abstract
The evolving utilization of functional imaging, mainly 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (18FDG) imaging, with positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT, is profoundly altering head and neck tumor staging approaches, radiation treatment planning, and follow-up management. Tumor-node-metastasis staging with PET/CT has improved the characterization of patient disease versus CT, MRI, or PET alone, thereby affecting patient disease management. Therefore, the utilization of PET/CT is appropriate for head and neck cancer staging in the initial presentation and in the recurrent setting. In the setting of radiation therapy treatment planning, PET-directed tumor volume contouring is not ready for clinical practice without further technological improvements in imaging specificity/sensitivity and resolution. Patient or organ motion might interfere with the accuracy of anatomical co-alignment, and variability in defining the threshold of imaging signals on PET images can affect the contour of the biological tumor volume. The use of PET/CT for staging and detecting both primary and recurrent head and neck cancer is valuable; however, its application in radiation treatment planning should be viewed as investigational.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 526-533 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Nature Clinical Practice Oncology |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2005 |
Keywords
- Head and neck cancer
- PET/CT
- Radiation therapy
- Treatment planning
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology