Common patterns of perineural spread in head-neck squamous cell carcinoma identified on fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography.
Perineural spread in HNSCC is associated with dismal prognosis and decreased overall survival. Clinical diagnosis of this relatively asymptomatic entity is usually delayed and made incidentally on imaging. MRI is gold standard imaging for early diagnosing of this condition owing to its excellent anatomic resolution. With the ever increasing use of PET/CT in commonly encountered cancer such as HNSCC for staging and re-staging, observing perineural spread on PET/CT is not infrequent. Through this pictorial essay we demonstrate the common patterns of perineural spread in HNSCC on PET/CT with the aim of improving reporting accuracy across readers.
Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Piyush
P
Chandra
Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Nilendu
N
Purandare
Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Sneha
S
Shah
Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Archi
A
Agrawal
Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Venkatesh
V
Rangarajan
Fluoro-deoxy-glucose; head-neck; magnetic resonance; perineural spread; positron emission tomography/computed tomography; squamous cell carcinomas