[Problems in recognizing recurrences of craniocervical malignancies in CT].

A retrospective study was carried out involving 39 patients with malignant tumours of the head and neck in order to differentiate by CT changes due to local tumour or lymph node recurrences and various post-operative or post-irradiation changes. In these patients, two or more CT examinations of the neck were available, derived from a fourth generation scanner. The suspected lesions were classified according to their type and the appearances correlated with the treatment and clinical findings. There was frequent overlap between the appearances of benign and malignant changes, so that in individual cases a definite decision often proved impossible.