Table 3 Post-treatment imaging of oropharyngeal cancer beyond the first 3–6-month baseline imaging study. Overview of included studies evaluating the results obtained with routine imaging surveillance versus symptom-directed imaging and/or clinical finding-directed imaging
From: Post-treatment surveillance imaging in head and neck cancer: a systematic review
First author and year | Imaging technique(s) | Design/methods | Results |
|---|---|---|---|
Imaging surveillance (at least once) after 3–6 months appears to be beneficial (in terms of lesion detection) | |||
 Nair 2022 [47] | CT | • Markov model based on data of 2159 patients | • Optimized, risk-stratified surveillance regimens consistently outperformed nonoptimized strategies. Best results were obtained with use of 6 post-treatment scans |
 Su 2018 [48] | PET-CT | • Retrospective cohort study including 33 patients | • In HPV+ patients, a large proportion of failures are asymptomatic distant metastases, which occur beyond 6 months following treatment completion, and are detected with whole body imaging alone |
 You 2018 [49] | PET-CT | • Retrospective cohort study including 149 patients | • PET-CT in the last 18 months of the 2-year posttreatment period impacted patient management |
Imaging surveillance after 3-6Â m appears to have no or only limited benefit | |||
 Corpman 2018 [50] | PET-CT | • Retrospective study including 233 patients | • For HPV+ patients, surveillance PET-CTs frequently lead to unnecessary testing and rarely to meaningful disease salvage |
 Kangelaris 2010 [51] | MRI | • Retrospective study including 40 patients | • In oropharyngeal cancer patients who have been treated with chemoradiation, an imaging surveillance program utilizing MRI produces limited opportunity for successful salvage |