Objective: To evaluate the value of 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/ computed tomography ( 18 F-FDG PET/CT) in the diagnosis of cervical lymph node metastasis of oral carcinoma. Methods: China national knowledge infrastructure, Wanfang, Chinese sci-tech journal database, PubMed, EMbase, the Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched for 18 F-FDG PET/CT in cervical lymph node metastasis oral cancer. Literature screening, data extraction and literature quality evaluation were carried out independently by two researchers according to the unified classification criteria. Stata13.0 software and Meta- Disc1.4 software were used for meta-analysis. Results: A total of 14 studies with 849 cases of patients with cervical metastasis of oral cancer were included, among which 9 studies were conducted on patients, with a total of 299 patients, and 5 studies were conducted on lymph nodes, with 1 965 patients with cervical lymph node proved pathologically. The results of meta analysis showed that 18 F-FDG PET/CT had good sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of cervical lymph node metastasis of oral cancer. The results showed that sensitivity = 0.81 (95% CI: 0.73-0.87), specificity = 0. 90 (95% CI: 0.83-0.94), combined likelihood ratio = 7. 9 (95% CI: 4.9-12.7), negative likelihood ratio = 0. 21 (95% CI: 0.15-0.30), diagnostic odds ratio=37 (95% CI: 20-67), and receiver operating characteristic curve =0.91 (95% CI: 0.89-0.94). Conclusions: 18 F-FDG PET/CT has high sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of cervical lymph node metastasis, and can be used as an important preoperative evaluation method for oral cancer.
