Whole-body (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in patients with head and neck cancer.

Objective: Because of the high risk of secondary primary malignancies in addition to possible distant metastases, whole-body evaluation is critically important in patients with head and neck cancer. We evaluated the clinical usefulness of whole-body (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) before initial treatment.

Study Design: We performed whole-body FDG PET in 26 patients with head and neck cancer (squamous cell carcinoma, n = 20; salivary gland carcinoma, n = 6) before initial treatment.