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Laterality on FDG-PET/CT in clinically node-negative early-stage oral squamous cell carcinoma: a retrospective analysis of patients with late neck metastasis

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Abstract

This study aimed to assess the role of preoperative 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) for predicting late neck metastasis in clinically node-negative (cN0) early-stage oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). We retrospectively investigated the standardized uptake value (SUV) parameters in patients with late neck metastasis based on the neck node level. The study population consisted of 16 patients with cT1N0 or cT2N0 oral SCC who were evaluated with dual-phase FDG-PET/CT and were treated with local resection of the primary tumor and watchful waiting for neck management. The SUV at each level was measured on the early and delayed images, and the laterality of the SUV was calculated. The laterality on the delayed images significantly differed between positive and negative pairs at the levels Ib (p = 0.002) and IIb (p = 0.013); a cut-off value of 1.4 yielded a true-positive rate of 50% and a false-positive rate of 6%. The laterality of FDG-uptake should be used to stratify the risk for nodal-level metastasis.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Editage (https://www.editage.com) for English language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Course of Radiological Sciences, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kumamoto University, 4-24-1 Kuhonji, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Anri Minamitake

  2. Department of Medical Radiation Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, 4-24-1 Kuhonji, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Ryuji Murakami & Fumi Sakamoto

  3. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1 Honjo, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, 860-8556, Japan

    Shinya Shiraishi

  4. Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1 Honjo, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, 860-8556, Japan

    Ryoji Yoshida, Junki Sakata, Akiyuki Hirosue, Kenta Kawahara, Keisuke Yamana & Hideki Nakayama

  5. Department of Medical Imaging Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, 4-24-1 Kuhonji, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Mika Kitajima

Authors
  1. Anri Minamitake
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  2. Ryuji Murakami
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  3. Shinya Shiraishi
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  4. Ryoji Yoshida
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  6. Akiyuki Hirosue
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  7. Kenta Kawahara
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  8. Keisuke Yamana
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  9. Hideki Nakayama
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  10. Mika Kitajima
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  11. Fumi Sakamoto
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Ryuji Murakami, Fumi Sakamoto, Shinya Shiraishi, Ryoji Yoshida, Junki Sakata, Akiyuki Hirosue, Kenta Kawahara, and Keisuke Yamana. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Anri Minamitake and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ryuji Murakami.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

This study was conducted retrospectively from data obtained for clinical purposes. The institutional review board of our institute approved this retrospective study (RINRI Number 1427).

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Informed consent was waived due to the retrospective nature of this study.

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Minamitake, A., Murakami, R., Shiraishi, S. et al. Laterality on FDG-PET/CT in clinically node-negative early-stage oral squamous cell carcinoma: a retrospective analysis of patients with late neck metastasis. Oral Radiol 38, 438–442 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11282-021-00581-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11282-021-00581-z

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