PET Imaging for Head and Neck Cancers.

ABSTRACT

Head and neck cancers are commonly encountered cancers in clinical practice in the United States. Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/CT has been clinically applied in staging, occult primary tumor detection, treatment planning, response assessment, follow-up, recurrent disease detection, and prognosis prediction in these patients. Alternative PET tracers remain investigational and can provide additional valuable information such as radioresistant tumor hypoxia. The recent introduction of 18F-FDG PET/MR imaging has provided the advantage of combining the superior soft tissue resolution of MR imaging with the functional information provided by 18F-FDG PET. This article is a concise review of recent advances in PET imaging in head and neck cancer.