An ex vivo study exploring the diagnostic potential of 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck region.

Background Definitive diagnosis of head and neck cancer is generally made by histopathologic evaluation. Management and prognosis largely depend on accurate and timely diagnosis. We have explored the use of 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy in search of a better or complementary diagnostic technique. Methods Tumor and adjacent normal tissue specimens (n = 135) from untreated head and neck cancer patients (n = 40) were obtained and subjected to spectroscopic evaluation followed by histopathologic analysis. Data were partitioned into training and test sets and subjected to multivariate analysis. Results The resonances from taurine, choline, glutamic acid, lactic acid, and lipid were found to have diagnostic potential by our optimal region selection algorithm. Multivariate analysis of the spectral data differentiated between normal and malignant tissues, with an overall accuracy of 92.6% (training set, 97.3%; test set, 87.3%), an overall sensitivity of 93% (test set, 90%), and an overall specificity of 92% (test set, 82.6%). Conclusions 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy combined with multivariate methods of analysis can distinguish between normal and malignant squamous cell tissue, and this may lead to the development of an objective and noninvasive diagnostic procedure. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 24: 766–772, 2002