PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Jong-Lyel Roh AU - Chang Hwan Ryu AU - Seung-Ho Choi AU - Jae Seung Kim AU - Jeong Hyun Lee AU - Kyung-Ja Cho AU - Soon Yuhl Nam AU - Sang Yoon Kim TI - Clinical Utility of <sup>18</sup>F-FDG PET for Patients with Salivary Gland Malignancies DP - 2007 Feb 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 240--246 VI - 48 IP - 2 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/48/2/240.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/48/2/240.full SO - J Nucl Med2007 Feb 01; 48 AB - The clinical utility of 18F-FDG PET in evaluating salivary gland malignancies has not been well defined. We therefore evaluated the utility of 18F-FDG PET in management for patients with salivary gland cancers. Methods: Thirty-four patients with newly diagnosed salivary gland cancers underwent CT and 18F-FDG PET before surgical resection with radiotherapy. The diagnostic accuracies of CT and 18F-FDG PET for detecting primary tumors and neck metastases were compared with a histopathologic reference. We determined the relationship between the maximum standardized uptake value (SUV) of the tumor and clinicopathologic parameters such as sex, age, local tumor invasion, T and N categories, TNM stage, and histologic grade, as well as their associations with disease-free survival (DFS). Results: 18F-FDG PET was more sensitive than CT for the detection of primary tumors (91.2% vs. 79.4%; P &lt; 0.05), cervical metastases (80.5% vs. 56.1%; P &lt; 0.05), and distant metastases in 2 patients at initial staging. High-grade malignancies had higher mean maximum SUVs than did low- and intermediate-grade malignancies (4.6 vs. 2.8; P = 0.011). T and N categories were independent determinants of DFS (P &lt; 0.05), but the maximum SUV (4.0) was not. During a mean follow-up of 25.1 mo, 18F-FDG PET correctly diagnosed local–regional recurrences in 6 patients and new distant metastases in 9 patients. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that, in patients with salivary gland malignancies, 18F-FDG PET is clinically useful in initial staging, histologic grading, and monitoring after treatment but not in predicting patient survival.