Correlation of Narrow Band Imaging Patterns with Histopathology Reports in Head and Neck Lesions

Head and neck malignancies are associated with poor prognosis and poor quality-of-life if detected late. Narrow-Band-Imaging(NBI) is one of the important tools, which helps in detecting these lesions earlier. By using narrow-wavelength(400–550 nm) it enhances the mucosal and submucosal vascularity against the pale mucosal background which helps us detecting benign, pre-malignant and malignant lesions.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of NBI in the diagnosis of various mucosal lesions of head and neck region and its correlation with the histopathology reports.

This was a prospective diagnostic study conducted between June 2020 - June 2022 where 118 patients(oral cavity-28, laryngeal-87,and hypopharyngeal-3) who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria were recruited. All-118-patients underwent NBI endoscopy under local/general anaesthesia followed by biopsies from the most suspicious-areas. Type of vascular-pattern noted from NBI and their respective histopathological reports were correlated.

The mean age was 53.28 ± 1.24 years ranging from 16 to 88 years. The sensitivity, specificity, Positive-Predictive-Value(PPV) and Negative-Predictive-Value(NPV) in detecting benign lesions were 100%, 90%, 74% and 100% respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV in detecting premalignant lesions were 70%, 92%, 56% and 96% respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV in detecting malignant lesions were 83%,97.5%, 98.5% and 97.5% respectively. NBI has a strong association with the histopathological reports, which is statistically significant(p-value < 0.001).

NBI has high specificity and negative predictive value in detecting and classifying various mucosal lesions of head-neck region. Its findings had a strong correlation with histopathological reports.