18Fluor-Fluorodesoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography with combined Magnetic Resonance Imaging (18F-FDG-PET/MRI) seems to be a promising modality for imaging of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) as in this type of malignancy the infiltration of surrounding structures is important for local staging and for surgical and radiotherapy planning [1]. With the high soft-tissue contrast of MRI and the superior ability of 18F-FDG-PET to detect nodal and distant metastatic tumour spread prior to morphological changes, the advent of combined PET/MRI will open new perspectives in non-invasive...

Patients Patients with suspected malignancy of the upper aerodigestive tract or a cancer of unknown primary with cervical lymphadenopathy were scheduled to undergo 18F-FDG-PET computed tomography (PET/CT) for staging and treatment planning and thereafter, without additional radiopharmaceutical administration, an integrated simultaneous PET/MRI study. Patients were retrospectively included in the current study if they fulfilled the following inclusion criteria: (a) if a de-novo or recurring HNSCC of the upper aerodigestive tract was histopathologically proven either by biopsy or by resection within 2 weeks after imaging, (b)...

17 patients fulfilled all inclusion criteria (15 male, 2 female, mean age 57.7 ± 7.3 years; range 49 – 79 years, see Figure 2). Tumours were 11 primary cancers and 6 recurrent cancers, located in the oral cavity (n=4), in the oropharynx (n=8) or in the hypopharynx and larynx (n=5). In patients with recurrent HNSCC, mean time from the end of therapy to diagnosis of the recurring carcinoma was 46 months (range from 12 to 120 months). Comparing primary and recurrent HNSCC, significantly higher SUVmax...

The current study demonstrates that, by integrating advanced MRI techniques for tissue characterisation into a simultaneous PET/MRI protocol, the in vivo assessment of glucose metabolism, tissue cell density and microcirculatory parameters of the tumour’s vascular bed is feasible. It is demonstrated that – using PET/MRI - complex interactions between glucose metabolism and microcirculation (expressed by correlations between SUV and Ktrans / kep), between glucose uptake and cellular density (depicted by correlations between SUV and ADC) and between cellularity and volume of the extravascular space (estimated...

Matthias Gawlitza MD, Klaus Kubiessa VDM, Thomas Kahn MD PhD, Patrick Stumpp MD: Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital of Leipzig, Liebigstraße 20, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Sandra Purz MD, Henryk Barthel MD PhD, Osama Sabri MD PhD: Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital of Leipzig, Liebigstraße 18, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Andreas Boehm MD: ENT-Department, University Hospital of Leipzig, Liebigstrasse 10-14, 04103 Leipzig, Germany

Kubiessa K, Purz S, Gawlitza M, Kühn A, Fuchs J, Steinhoff KG, u. a. Initial clinical results of simultaneous (18)F-FDG PET/MRI in comparison to (18)F-FDG PET/CT in patients with head and neck cancer. Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imaging. 2013 [E-Pub ahead of print] Von Schulthess GK, Kuhn FP, Kaufmann P, Veit-Haibach P. Clinical Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance Imaging Applications. Semin. Nucl. Med. 2013;43:3–10 Sauter AW, Wehrl HF, Kolb A, Judenhofer MS, Pichler BJ. Combined PET/MRI: one step further in multimodality imaging. Trends Mol. Med....