PET/MRI of patients with head and neck cancer yielded good diagnostic capability, similar to PET/CT. Further studies on larger cohorts to prove these first results seem justified.
ObjectiveTo demonstrate the feasibility of simultaneous acquisition of 18F-FDG-PET, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and T1-weighted dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (T1w-DCE) in an integrated simultaneous PET/MRI in patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC) and to investigate possible correlations between these parameters.Methods17 patients that had given informed consent (15 male, 2 female) with biopsy-proven HNSCC underwent simultaneous 18F-FDG-PET/MRI including DWI and T1w-DCE. SUVmax, SUVmean, ADCmean, ADCmin and K
trans, k
ep and v
e were measured for each tumour and correlated using Spearman’s ρ.ResultsSignificant correlations were observed between SUVmean and K
trans (ρ = 0.43; p ≤ 0.05); SUVmean and k
ep (ρ = 0.44; p ≤ 0.05); K
trans and k
ep (ρ = 0.53; p ≤ 0.05); and between k
ep and v
e (ρ = -0.74; p ≤ 0.01). There was a trend towards statistical significance when correlating SUVmax and ADCmin (ρ = -0.35; p = 0.08); SUVmax and K
trans (ρ = 0.37; p = 0.07); SUVmax and k
ep (ρ = 0.39; p = 0.06); and ADCmean and v
e (ρ = 0.4; p = 0.06).ConclusionSimultaneous 18F-FDG-PET/MRI including DWI and T1w-DCE in patients with HNSCC is feasible and allows depiction of complex interactions between glucose metabolism, microcirculatory parameters and cellular density.
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