Clinical application of PET/CT for the identification of cervical lymph node metastases of oral and maxillofacial cancers

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical value of PET/CT in diagnosing cervical lymph node metastasis of oral and maxillofacial cancers by comparison with MRI examination.METHODS: Forty-seven patients of oral and maxillofacial cancers underwent PET/CT and MRI examination 2 weeks before surgery.PET/CT and MRI were interpreted separately to assess regional lymph node status.Histopathological analysis was used as the gold standard for assessment of the lymph node involvement.Differences in sensitivity,specificity and accuracy among the imaging modalities were analyzed by SPSS13.0 software package for Chi-square test.RESULTS: The sensitivity of PET/CT and MRI for the identification of nodal metastases was 89.5% and 73.7% separately(P0.05),whereas the specificity of PET/CT and MRI was 89.3% and 78.6% separately(P0.05).The accuracy of PET/CT and MRI for the detection of cervical nodal metastases was 89.4% and 76.6%,respectively(P0.05).CONCLUSIONS: The sensitivity and accuracy of PET/CT for the detection of cervical lymph node metastases was higher than that of MRI.PET/CT can serve as a supplementary method for the identification of cervical lymph node metastases of oral and maxillofacial cancers.