Comparison of Whole-Body PET/CT, Dedicated High-Resolution Head and Neck PET/CT, and Contrast-Enhanced CT in Preoperative Staging of Clinically M0 Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck

The purpose of this studywas to compare optimizedwhole-body (WB) and dedicated high-resolution contrast-enhanced PET/CT protocols and contrast enhanced CT in the preoperative staging of primary squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Methods: A total of 44 patients with clinically M0 squamous cell carcinomaof the headand neck underwent primary tumor re-section and neck dissection within 6 wk of diagnostic imaging. Imaging consisted of a standardWBPET/CT protocol without in-travenous contrast enhancement, followed by a high-resolution dedicated head and neck (HN) PET/CT protocol, which included diagnostic-quality contrast-enhanced CT (CECT). Imaging re-sults were compared with histopathology. A 5-point scale was used to designate primary tumor localization and the presence of lymph node metastasis on a per-patient and per-level basis. For cervical nodes, receiver-operating-characteristic curves wer