Elsevier

PET Clinics

Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 75-88
PET Clinics

18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose–Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography in Malignancies of the Thyroid and in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Review of the Literature

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpet.2014.09.006Get rights and content

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Key points

  • •

    The focus of this work is to review the evidence of hybrid positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) for the evaluation in patients with HNSCC and thyroid cancer.

  • •

    Many early studies were performed with stand-alone PET systems or side-by-side PET and CT systems; only later studies were conducted using dedicated hybrid PET/CT systems.

  • •

    Some studies include a small fraction of patients scanned on nonhybrid systems, which clearly should affect the

The thyroid gland

  • •

    FDG-PET/CT is a powerful diagnostic tool in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) in patients who present after thyroidectomy with increasing serum thyroglobulin levels and a negative radioiodine whole-body scan.

  • •

    Certain subtypes of aggressive thyroid cancer benefit from FDG-PET/CT in initial staging as well as in both early and long-term follow-up.

  • •

    Management strategies in recurrent DTC are guided by FDG-PET/CT.

Thyroid cancers constitute the most common endocrine malignancy worldwide, steadily

Head and neck

  • •

    FDG-PET/CT markedly increases identification of unknown primary cancers and thereby impacts therapeutic strategy.

  • •

    Small lymph node metastases may go undetected by FDG-PET/CT, but FDG-PET/CT is not limited by an arbitrary size criteria.

  • •

    Modern scanners with increased resolution may improve detection of small lymph node metastases, but not micrometastases.

  • •

    Synchronous cancers are common in HNSCC and FDG-PET/CT is superior to other imaging modalities in detecting these neoplasms.

HNSCC comprises up to

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    Disclosures: None.

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