RESUMO
OBJECTIVE@#The large sample retrospective cohort study were used to compare the diagnostic efficiency of PET/CT with conventional work-up (CWU) for evaluating nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) distant metastasis.@*METHOD@#Five hundred and fourteen patients with NPC were divided into PET/CT group and CWU group according the method of detecting distant metastasis. Chest film, abdominal ultrasonography, and bone scan were used in CWU group. Then the diagnostic efficiency of the two groups was compared.@*RESULT@#Two hundred and sixteen patints were enrolled in PET/CT group and two hundred and nineteen-eight ones in CWU group. There were 28 out of 412 suspicious patients in CWU group were confirmed, another 3 patients confirmed without positive findings, compared with PET/CT group that all 32 suspicious patients were confirmed. The sensitivity and specificity of PET/CT were 100.0% (32/32) and 100.0% (184/184), as compared to 90.3% (28/31) and 94.8% (253/267) with CWU respectively, while there was no statistical significance. Further research found out that the percentage of patients with multiple distant metastatic sites and multiple organ metastases was higher in PET/CT group (P < 0.05), and similarly of patients with distant metastasis in N2-3 stages (P < 0.01).@*CONCLUSION@#Our results suggest that PET/CT appears to be slightly superior to conventional work-up in assessment of distant metastasis in NPC patients, but CWU is still a cheap and practical method.