To increase the chance of survival and to be more accurate in the delivery of radiation doses for head and neck cancer patients, images derived from PET (positron emission tomography) and CT (computed tomography) should be combined, the doctors have found out.

Currently, head and neck cancer patients must undergo surgery or radiation for early-stage cancer and some combination of radiation, surgery or chemotherapy for advanced cases. However, these high doses of radiation that the patients receive cause toxicity and can negatively impact the patients' quality of life.

The pilot study, conducted on 28 patients, set out to discern whether combining PET and CT images to plan intensity modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, treatments for patients resulted in better delivery of the radiation and lower recurrence rates. The doctors fused images captured from both the PET and CT scans and found that the proposed treatment plans were very different in 14 of 16 patients whose plans had been designed using CT scanning alone. Out of the 28 patients who were followed for more than six months after treatment, 16 showed no signs of recurrence.

The new study with findings on the combined tomography is published in the May issue of the International Journal of Radiation, Oncology, Biology and Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

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