Correlation of [18F]FMISO autoradiography and pimonodazole immunohistochemistry in human head and neck carcinoma xenografts.

Purpose Tumour cell hypoxia is a common feature in solid tumours adversely affecting radiosensitivity and chemosensitivity in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. Positron emission tomography (PET) using the tracer [18F]fluoromisonidazole ([18F]FMISO) is most frequently used for non-invasive evaluation of hypoxia in human tumours. A series of ten human head and neck xenograft tumour lines was used to validate [18F]FMISO as hypoxia marker at the microregional level.