FDG PET based prediction of response in head and neck cancer treatment: Assessment of new quantitative imaging features

Introduction 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) is now a standard diagnostic imaging test performed in patients with head and neck cancer for staging, restaging, radiotherapy planning, and outcome assessment. Currently, quantitative analysis of FDG PET scans is limited to simple metrics like maximum standardized uptake value, metabolic tumor volume, or total lesion glycolysis, which have limited predictive value. The goal of this work was to assess the predictive potential of new (i.e., nonstandard) quantitative imaging features on head and neck cancer outcome. Methods This retrospective study analyzed fifty-eight pre-and post-treatment FDG PET scans of patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer to calculate five standard and seventeen new features at baseline and post-treatment. Cox survival regression was used to assess the predictive potential of each quantitative imaging feature on disease-free survival. Results Analysis showed that the post-treatment change of the average tracer uptake in the rim background region immediately adjacent to the tumor normalized by uptake in the liver represents a novel PET feature that is associated with disease-free survival (HR 1.95; 95% CI 1.27, 2.99) and has good discriminative performance (c index 0.791). Conclusion The reported findings define a promising new direction for quantitative imaging biomarker research in head and neck squamous cell cancer and highlight the potential role of new radiomics features in oncology decision making as part of precision medicine.