Purpose: To discuss the implications of three examples of periparotid recurrence after definitive intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for head and neck cancer (HNC).
Methods and materials: We present 3 patients with HNC who underwent definitive IMRT with concurrent chemotherapy and later had treatment failure in or near a spared parotid gland. Two patients had bilateral multilevel nodal disease, and all had Level II nodal disease ipsilateral to the site of recurrence. The patients were treated using dose-painting IMRT with a dose of 70 Gy to the gross tumor volume and 59.4 Gy or 54 Gy to the high-risk or low-risk clinical tumor volume, respectively. The parotid glands were spared bilaterally. The patients had not undergone any surgical treatment for HNC before radiotherapy.
Results: All patients had treatment failure in the region of a spared parotid gland. Failure in the 2 patients with bilateral multilevel nodal involvement occurred in the periparotid lymph nodes. The third patient developed a dermal metastasis near the tail of a spared parotid gland. On pretreatment imaging, the 2 patients with nodal failure had small nonspecific periparotid nodules that showed no hypermetabolic activity on positron emission tomography.
Conclusion: For HNC patients receiving definitive IMRT, nonspecific positron emission tomography-negative periparotid nodules on pretreatment imaging should raise the index of suspicion for subclinical disease in the presence of multilevel or Level II nodal metastases. Additional evaluation of such nodules might be indicated before sparing the ipsilateral parotid gland.