Positron emission tomography and stage migration in head and neck cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Since 2001, there has been a rapid adoption of positron emission tomography (PET) for diagnosis and American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging of head and neck cancer (HNC) without data describing improved clinical outcomes.

Objective

To determine the association between increased use of PET and stage and/or survival for patients with HNC in the managed care environment.

Design, setting, and participants

Adult patients diagnosed as having HNC (n = 958) from 2000 to 2008 at 4 integrated health systems were identified via tumor registries linked to administrative data. The AJCC stage distribution, patient and treatment characteristics, and survival between pre-PET era (2000-2004) vs PET era (2005-2008) and use of PET vs no use of PET during the PET era

SUBMITTER: VanderWalde NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6000724 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature