Diagnosis of cervical lymph node metastases in head and neck cancer with ultrasonic measurement of lymph node volume

Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of ultrasound (US) volume measurement of the cervical lymph nodes for diagnosing nodal metastasis in patients with head and neck cancer using a node-by-node comparison. Methods Thirty-four consecutive patients with head and neck cancer from one tertiary university hospital were prospectively enrolled from 2012 to 2017. Patients with histologically proven squamous cell primary tumors in the head and neck region scheduled to undergo a therapeutic neck dissection were eligible. For each patient, 1–4 target lymph nodes were selected from the planned neck dissection levels. Lymph nodes with thickness >20 mm or in a cluster were excluded. Node-by-node comparisons between the pre-operative US assessment, the post-operative actual measurements and histopathological results were performed for all target lymph nodes. Quantitative measurements, such as three diameters, ratios of the three diameters and volume were analyzed in this study. Lymph node volume was calculated using the ellipsoid formula. Results Patients comprised 28 men and 6 women with a mean age of 60.0 years (range, 29–80 years) at the time of surgery. In total, 67 target lymph nodes were analyzed in this study and the thickness ranged from 3.9 to 20.0 mm (mean 8.0 mm). There was a strong correlation between the US volume and post-operative actual volume (ρ = 0.87, p Conclusion Pre-operative ultrasonic volume measurement of the cervical lymph nodes was useful for early detection of cervical nodal metastasis in head and neck cancer.