Imaging Tests Help Determine Cancer Treatment Success

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- After receiving chemoradiotherapy treatment, there may now be a way to predict which head and neck cancer patients will respond to the treatment and who may need surgery.

Chemoradiotherapy is a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and has been used for the past two decades to help save organs while treating head and neck cancers. Following treatment, experts say it's important to assess the primary tumor site and cervical lymph nodes to look for any lingering disease, direct surgical salvage, and prevent recurrence.

Researchers at the Southern Illinois School of Medicine in Springfield analyzed 31 patients treated with chemoradiotherapy between 2004 and 2006. They all underwent positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET-CT) six to eight weeks after they finished therapy, to look for persistent tumors. Overall, they found the PET-CT scans correctly predicted the response of the tumor 83 percent of the time. In patients whose cancer had spread to surrounding lymph nodes before they started treatment, the PET-CT scans correctly predicted the response of the tumor 75 percent of the time.

"On the basis of this study, PET-CT performed six to eight weeks after the completion of intra-arterial chemoradiotherapy for advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck is a valuable tool for measuring treatment response and facilitating clinical decision making," study authors wrote. "In addition to early prediction of treatment response, PET-CT provides early detection of distant metastases, which permits earlier intervention in patients with distant disease."

Source: Archives of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, 2009;135(11):1119-1125

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