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Quantification of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake to detect residual nodal disease in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma after chemoradiotherapy: results from the ECLYPS study

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

The Hopkins criteria were introduced for nodal response evaluation after therapy in head and neck cancer, but its superiority over quantification is not yet confirmed.

Methods

SUVbody weight thresholds and lesion-to-background ratios were explored in a prospective multicenter study of standardized FDG-PET/CT 12 weeks after CRT in newly diagnosed locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LAHNSCC) patients (ECLYPS). Reference standard was histology, negative FDG-PET/CT at 12 months after treatment or ≥ 2 years of negative follow-up. Area under the receiver operator characteristics curves (AUROC) were estimated and obtained thresholds were validated in an independent cohort of HNSCC patients (n = 127).

Results

In ECLYPS, 124 patients were available for quantification. With a median follow-up of 20.4 months, 23 (18.5%) nodal neck recurrences were observed. A SUV70 threshold of 2.2 (AUROC = 0.89; sensitivity = 79.7%; specificity = 80.8%) was identified as optimal metric to identify nodal recurrence within 1 year after therapy. For lesion-to-background ratios, an SUV50/SUVliver threshold of 0.96 (AUROC = 0.89; sensitivity = 79.7%; specificity = 82.8%) had the best performance. Compared with Hopkins criteria (AUROC = 0.81), SUV70 and SUV50/SUVliver provided a borderline significant (p = 0.040 and p = 0.094, respectively) improvement. Validation of thresholds yielded similar AUROC values (SUV70 = 0.93, SUV50/SUVliver = 0.95), and were comparable to the Hopkins score (AUROC = 0.91; not statistically significant).

Conclusion

FDG quantification detects nodal relapse in LAHNSCC patients. When using EARL standardized PET acquisitions and reconstruction, absolute SUV metrics (SUV70 threshold 2.2) prove robust, yet ratios (SUV50/SUVliver, threshold 0.96) may be more useful in routine clinical care. In this setting, the diagnostic value of quantification is comparable to the Hopkins criteria.

Trial registration

US National Library for Medicine, NCT01179360. Registered 11 August 2010, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01179360

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Funding

This study was supported by Grant No. IWT-90867 from the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital, Edegem, Belgium

    Nils Helsen, Tim Van den Wyngaert, Laurens Carp & Sigrid Stroobants

  2. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, wilrijk, 2650, Antwerp, Belgium

    Nils Helsen, Tim Van den Wyngaert, Laurens Carp, Olivier M. VanderVeken & Sigrid Stroobants

  3. Amsterdam UMC, Departments of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Cancer Center Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Remco De Bree, Sara Hakim & Otto S. Hoekstra

  4. Head and Neck Surgical Oncology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Remco De Bree

  5. Department Otorhinolaryngology, and Head & Neck Surgery, Antwerp University Hospital, Edegem, Belgium

    Olivier M. VanderVeken

  6. Department of Nuclear Medicine, AZ Sint Jan, Brugge, Belgium

    Frank De Geeter

  7. Department of Nuclear Medicine, AZ Groeninge, Kortrijk, Belgium

    Alex Maes & Laurence Beels

  8. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Jessa Hospital, Hasselt, Belgium

    Jean-Philippe Cambier

  9. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Sint Augustinus, Wilrijk, Belgium

    Karoline Spaepen

  10. Department of radiotherapy, AZ Turnhout, Turnhout, Belgium

    Michel Martens

  11. Department of radiotherapy, ZNA Middelheim, Antwerp, Belgium

    Danielle Van den Weyngaert

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  1. Nils Helsen
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Consortia

ECLYPS Consortium

Contributions

NH, TVdW, LC, OMV, OSH, DVdW and SS participated in the study design. The collection and assembly of the data was performed by NH, TVdW, LC, OMV, SH, MM, OSH, RdB, FDG, AM, JPC, KS, LB, and DVdW. NH, TVdW, NH, LC, OSH, DVdW contributed to the data analysis and interpretation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nils Helsen.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study and the informed consent was approved by our Ethics Committee (B30020109153). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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All authors approved the final manuscript and consent for publication.

Availability of data and material

The datasets used in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Oncology - Head and Neck

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Helsen, N., Van den Wyngaert, T., Carp, L. et al. Quantification of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake to detect residual nodal disease in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma after chemoradiotherapy: results from the ECLYPS study. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 47, 1075–1082 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-020-04710-4

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