The Pentoxifylline, Tocopherol and Clodronate protocol (PENTOCLO) showed promising results for jaw osteoradionecrosis (ORN) management. However, the clinical and radiological improvements are often delayed, leading to unwanted long-term treatment, with potential loss of opportunity for more radical surgical treatments. Our objective was to assess the diagnosis performance of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT to early predict ORN response to the PENTOCLO protocol.

All patients from our center who were treated with the PENTOCLO protocol and with a ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT performed at diagnosis and three months after the end of antibiotherapy were retrospectively included. The PENTOCLO protocol was always combined with prior appropriate antibiotherapy for six weeks. The healing endpoint was divided into healing, stability or worsening, according to the combination of clinical and radiological assessments at the date of last follow-up. For each patient, the difference between the maximal standardized uptake value (ΔSUVmax) of the ORN lesion at three months and baseline were computed. Diagnostic performance of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT was evaluated by sensitivity, specificity and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC) of ΔSUVmax.

24 patients were included with an average follow-up of 29.3 months. The healing, stability and worsening rate were 25%, 62.5% and 12.5% respectively. The AUC for discriminating worsening vs stability or healing was 0.92 (IC95 [0.81–1.00]). A ΔSUVmax greater than or equal to 0 was predictive of a worsening with a sensitivity and specificity of 84 and 66% respectively.

¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT imaging could be useful for early prediction of PENTOCLO treatment resistance with appropriate antibiotherapy.