Tumor Metabolism and Perfusion in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Pretreatment Multimodality Imaging with 1H-MRS, DCE MRI and 18F-FDG PET: An Exploratory Study

Jacobus FA Jansen¹, Heiko Schoder¹, Nancy Lee¹, Hilda Stambuk¹, Ya Wang¹, Matthew Fury¹, Snehal Patel¹, David Pfister¹, Jatin Shah¹, Jason Koutcher¹, Amita Shukla-Dave¹

The study aims to correlate pretreatment multimodality (MM) imaging data obtained with 1H-MRS, DCE-MRI and 18F-FDG PET in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with neck nodal metastases for more precise assessment of the tumor metabolism and perfusion. Additionally, pretreatment MM imaging data was evaluated for its efficacy in prediction of short term response to treatment. In 29 HNSCC patients, Cho/W, Ktrans, ve, kep, 18F-FDG SUV measures were correlated. It was found that pretreatment MM imaging is valuable for the precise assessment of tumor biology, and maybe a predictive marker for short term response.