Positron emission tomography (PET) using ¹⁸F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG), which reflects glucose metabolism, has been reported to be useful for staging head and neck cancers and for investigating the primary lesion of unknown origin, double cancer, recurrence and residual cancer after treatment. It has also been reported that the degree of accumulation before treatment may be utilized as a prognostic factor. The usefulness of PET using ¹¹C-choline, which reflects cell membrane phospholipid metabolism, for cancer diagnosis has been reported as well.
In this study, we investigated differences in the prognosis based on the degree of ¹¹C-choline-PET and FDG-PET accumulation. ¹¹C-choline-PET and FDG-PET were taken before treatment in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. To indicate the degree of accumulation, the standard uptake value (SUV) was used. Choline and FDG were accumulated in the primary lesion in all patients. The SUVs in both choline and FDG were higher in patients who responded poorly to primary treatment than in those who responded well. The cumulative survival rate of patients with a high SUV of choline was significantly lower than that of patients with a low SUV of choline.
SUV of choline-PET before treatment may be utilized as a prognostic factor.