ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the usefulness of pre- and post-treatment metabolic tumor volume (MTV) obtained from positron emission tomography (PET) in predicting prognosis and evaluating recurrence in patients with hypopharyngeal cancer (HPC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-three consecutive HPC patients treated with chemoradiotherapy were retrospectively analyzed. Maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) and MTV of tumor (T) and lymph node (N) were analyzed. RESULTS: On multivariate analysis using pre-treatment parameters, MTV-T (p = 0.049) and MTV-TN (p = 0.043) were significantly associated with local control (LC), and MTV-N (p = 0.049) was significantly associated with disease-specific survival (DSS). Post-treatment MTV-TN was also significantly associated with prognosis (p < 0.001 in LC; p = 0.002 in DSS) and recurrence (area under curve 0.95). Neither pre- nor post-treatment SUVmax was significantly associated with prognosis. CONCLUSION: Pre- and post-treatment MTV appears useful for predicting prognosis and evaluating recurrence.