Comparison of whole body positron emission tomography (PET)/PET-computed tomography and conventional anatomic imaging for detecting distant malignancies in patients with head and neck cancer: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Objectives/hypothesis: We aimed to compare the accuracy of whole body positron emission tomography (PET)/PET-computed tomography (CT) and conventional anatomic imaging for detecting distant malignancies in patients with head and neck cancer.

Study design: Meta-Analysis.

Methods: We performed a meta-analysis of all available studies. We compared the performance of whole body PET/PET-CT with that of conventional anatomic imaging by analyzing studies that had also used conventional anatomic imaging on the same patients.

Results: Across eight studies (1,147 patients), sensitivity and specificity of PET/PET-CT were 0.83 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.76-0.88) and 0.96 (95% CI, 0.94-0.97), respectively, and for conventional anatomic imaging were 0.44 (95% CI, 0.29-0.61) and 0.96 (95% CI, 0.88-0.98), respectively. Subgroup analysis showed that PET/PET-CT had higher sensitivity than conventional anatomic imaging for nasopharyngeal cancer (0.82 vs. 0.30) and non-nasopharyngeal head and neck cancer (0.85 vs. 0.62).

Conclusions: Compared with conventional anatomic imaging, whole body PET/PET-CT has excellent diagnostic performance for detecting distant malignancies in patients with head and neck cancer.