B-0158 Initial clinical results of simultaneous PET/MRI in comparison with PET/CT in patients with head and neck cancer

P. Stumpp, K. Kubiessa, S. Purz, M. Gawlitza, A. Kühn, K.G. Steinhoff, A. Boehm, R. Kluge, T. Kahn | Thursday, March 7, 14:00 – 15:30 / Room C

Purpose: Describing diagnostic capability of simultaneous PET/MRI in comparison with PET/CT and their single components CT, MRI and PET in an initial prospective study based on 17 patients with head-and-neck cancer.
Methods and Materials: 17 patients with head-and-neck cancer received an ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT for staging or follow-up and an additional simultaneous PET/MRI scan with a whole body imaging part and a dedicated examination of the neck. Sole MRI, CT and PET components of the multimodal acquisitions plus the PET/MRI and PET/CT examinations were evaluated independently, blinded and in a randomised order by two readers. Results were compared with the reference standard, and sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated.
Results: 23 malignant tumours and 55 benign changes were found with the reference standard. For PET/CT the two reader groups showed a sensitivity of 78.3% and 87 %, a specificity of 85.5% and 89.1%, a PPV of 71.4% and 75 % and a NPV of 90.7% and 94 %. For PET/MRI sensitivity was 78.3% and 82.6%, specificity 81.8% and 94.5%, PPV 65.5% and 85.7% and NPV 91.2% and 93.8%. Evaluation of the single PET part from PET/CT revealed highest sensitivity of 95.7%, whereas evaluation of the sole MRI component from PET/MRI showed best specificity of 96.4%. There was a high interrater agreement in all modalities (Cohen’s kappa coefficient: 0.61 – 0.82).
Conclusion: PET/MRI of patients with head and neck cancer yielded good diagnostic capability, similar to PET/CT. Further studies on larger cohorts to prove these first results seem justified.

Be Sociable, Share!

•