FDG-PET predicts bone invasion and prognosis in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma

¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) is widely used for tumor staging. This study sought to determine the relationship of preoperative primary tumor SUVmax (tSUVmax) with the clinicopathological features of patients with OSCC and to compare the prognostic ability of tSUVmax with that of other recurrence factors. Data of 340 patients with OSCC who were diagnosed, treated, and followed up at the Changhua Christian Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Only patients with OSCC arising from gingiva, palate, floor of the mouth, and retromolar trigone and those who had received preoperative FDG-PET within 2 weeks before surgery were included. tSUVmax value > 9.2 was the strong predictor of bone invasion (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.844). tSUVmax value > 7.2 showed a strong association with advanced pathological T stage and recurrence factors and was associated with poor survival; tSUVmax > 7.2 showed stronger predictive power for poor disease-free survival (DFS) than pT stage and the other recurrence factors related to primary tumor. FDG-PET can be a useful supplement to contrast-enhanced computed tomography or contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for diagnosing bone invasion by OSCC. The tSUVmax value was an independent predictor of DFS in this study.