Laryngeal and hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma: association between quantitative parameters derived from...

Dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) can provide objective evaluation of laryngeal and hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LHSCC).

To investigate the relationship between quantitative parameters acquired from DECT and histopathological prognostic factors in LHSCC.

A total of 65 patients with LHSCC who underwent arterial phase and venous phase DECT scans were retrospectively enrolled. Iodine concentration (IC) and normalized IC (NIC) of the tumor were calculated in both the arterial (IC_A and NIC_A) and venous (IC_V and NIC_V) phases, and compared among different pathological grades, T stages, and lymph node stages. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to evaluate their diagnostic performance.

There were significantly differences on IC_A and NIC_A among three pathological grades (IC_A, P = 0.001; NIC_A, P = 0.002). For differentiating moderately and poorly differentiated from well-differentiated LHSCC using IC_A and NIC_A, the areas under curve (AUCs) were 0.753 and 0.726, respectively. High T stage (T3/4) LHSCC showed significantly higher IC_A (P = 0.012) and NIC_A (P = 0.005) than low T stage (T1/2) LHSCC. The AUCs of the IC_A and NIC_A were 0.674 and 0.703, respectively, in discriminating high from low T stage LHSCC. Lymph node metastasis (LNM)-positive (N1/2/3) LHSCC showed significantly higher IC_A (P = 0.008) and NIC_A (P = 0.003) than LNM-negative (N0) LHSCC. For discriminating the LNM-positive from the LNM-negative group using IC_A and NIC_A, the AUCs were 0.697 and 0.744, respectively.

IC_A and NIC_A might be helpful in assessing histopathological prognostic factors in patients with LHSCC.