Detection of cervical lymph node metastases of nasopharyngeal carcinomas with technetium-99m tetrofosmin single photon emission computed tomography and comparison with computed tomography

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of technetium-99m tetrofosmin (Tc-99m TF) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in the detection of cervical lymph node (LN) metastasis in nasopharyngeal c arcinomas (NPC), and to compare Tc-99m TF SPECT results with computed tomog raphy (CT) findings. Fifty patients with biopsy-proven NPC and suspected ce rvical LN metastases underwent head and neck Tc-99m TF SPECT and CT to dete ct cervical LN metastases. Cervical LN metastases of 40 patients were confi rmed by histopathological examination of biopsy samples. For 22 LN lesions with discordant results between Tc-99m TF SPECT and CT, Tc-99m TF SPECT cou ld correctly detect 4 metastatic and 7 benign LN lesions while CT could cor rectly detect 5 metastatic and 6 benign LN lesions. Agreement positive resu lts of Tc-99m TF SPECT and CT could correctly detect all of the Is metastat ic LN lesions. Tc-99m TF SPECT has a better specificity brit a lower sensit ivity for detecting cervical LN metastases in NPC when compared with CT. Th e combined rise of Tc-99m TF SPECT and CT could significantly increase the accuracy of detect cervical LN metastases in NPC compared with the single u se of either Tc-99m TF SPECT or CT.