Source: www.auntminnieeurope.com Author: Philip Ward, AuntMinnieEurope.com staff writer PET/MRI is a promising tool in the pre-therapeutic assessment of primary tumors of the upper aerodigestive tract with lymph node extension, particularly in the identification of predictive characteristics of recurrence or progression, a leading French research group has reported. "Lymph node PET/MR analysis has shown that the strongest predictors of recurrence were lymph node enhancement and SUVmax for the contralateral nodes and enhancement, SUVmax node shape for the homolateral nodes," noted Dr. Nadya Pyatigorskaya, PhD, a neuroradiologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital (l'Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris, AP-HP) in Paris and a researcher in the MOV'IT multidisciplinary team at the Paris Brain Institute, and colleagues. Cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract mostly consist of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs), which account for 90% of stage I head and neck cancers and represent the sixth most common cancer worldwide. HNSCC have a high recurrence rate and represent one of the most common histological types to metastasize to regional lymph nodes, Pyatigorskaya explained in an e-poster presentation on 7 June at the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) meeting in Toronto. "Metastatic nodes are mostly homolateral to the primary tumor, but contralateral or bilateral nodes are not rare, especially when the primary tumor is medial or posterior," she stated. "The risk of lymph node metastasis occurs for the largest tumors, mostly T3-T4. The presence of metastatic nodes reduces significantly the five-year survival rate." Lymph nodes are generally assessed by [...]