High diagnostic accuracy for lymph node metastasis of oral squamous cell carcinoma using PET/CT with a silicon photomultiplier

The higher sensitivity of the new-generation positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) may increase false-positive rates in detecting metastatic lymph nodes (LNs). This study aimed to clarify the usefulness of the SiPM PET scanner in diagnosing LN metastasis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).We retrospectively reviewed consecutive F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT images of 39 SCC patients using SiPM PET and 31 SCC patients using non-SiPM PET. We measured the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVThe sensitivity and specificity of SiPM PET were 86.2% and 95.6%, respectively (cut-off SUVSiPM PET had higher diagnostic accuracy for LN metastasis of oral SCC than non-SiPM PET, even for small LN metastasis without increasing false-positives.