Comparative study of CT and histological findings of cervical lymph node metastasis

Abstract

Comparative study on 128 cervical lymph nodes (LNs) between preoperative CT images and these histopathological findings was performed in 24 cases of oral and maxillary sinus carcinomas. Based on the CT findings, LNs were classified into three groups : (1) ring, (2) heterogenous, and (3) homogenous enhancement. The results disclosed that the lymphnodes on preoperative CT findings such as ring enhancement showed characteristic histopathological metastasis. The lymph nodes, which were histopathologically metastatic and were found to be characterized by ring enhancement on CT, showed extranodal invasion, and those, which were found to be heterogeneous or homogeneous enhancement on CT, showed histopathologically low advancement. This suggested that the preoperative CT findings of cervical lymphnodes are clinically valuable for the detection of the mode of metastatic nodes such as extranodal invasion.