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Comparative Study
. 2011 Nov;33(11):1569-75.
doi: 10.1002/hed.21635. Epub 2010 Dec 15.

Carcinoma of unknown primary in the head and neck: comparison between positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT

Florian Keller  1 , Georgios Psychogios, Rainer Linke, Michael Lell, Torsten Kuwert, Heinrich Iro, Johannes Zenk
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Carcinoma of unknown primary in the head and neck: comparison between positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT

Florian Keller et al. Head Neck. 2011 Nov.

Abstract

Background: Comparison of the diagnostic validity of positron emission tomography (PET) alone with integrated PET and CT (PET/CT) in the search for occult primary tumors in patients with cancer of unknown primary (CUP) site in the head and neck.

Methods: Thirty-nine consecutive patients with clinical CUP were investigated with PET and 38 patients with PET/CT. After initial diagnostic panendoscopy and histological confirmation of the cervical lymph node metastasis, either PET or PET/CT scanning was performed.

Results: Integrated PET/CT had a significantly higher overall detection rate than dedicated PET alone (55.2% vs 30.8%; p = .039) and positive prediction rate (93.3% vs 46.1%; p = .01).

Conclusion: Integrated PET/CT showed to be superior to PET in the detection of the primary site of clinically occult tumors in CUP syndrome. However, a negative result should still be investigated further by means of panendoscopy with tonsillectomy and blind biopsies.

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