Imaging modalities in head-and-neck cancer patients

Accurate staging and timely assessment is critical in head-and-neck cancer patients for formulating the appropriate treatment strategy. Therefore, optimizing pretreatment imaging for diagnosis is of great importance. Computerized tomography (CT), introduced in the early 70s, followed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), refinements in ultrasonography (USG), advances in nuclear medicine, and applications such as sentinel node lymphoscintigraphy have greatly added to diagnostic accuracy. Post-treatment CT or MRI is of value when a recurrent tumor is suspected. It can confirm the presence of such a lesion and determine its extent. This is important information for determining the possibility of salvage therapy.