Mid-long-term prognostic value of preoperative 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging on patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer / 中华核医学与分子影像杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the role of preoperative 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT imaging in mid-long-term prognosis of patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods:Seventy resectable NSCLC patients (35 males, 35 females, median age 64 years) in Beijing Hospital between April 2010 and August 2016 were enrolled into this retrospectively study. All patients underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging followed by pulmonary resection with mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes dissection within 1 month. The findings of PET/CT imaging including characteristics of primary lesions and mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes (size and maximum standardized uptake value (SUV max) of primary lesion, SUV max and distribution of high metabolic lymph nodes (HML)) were analyzed, and patients were followed up. Survival outcome indicators were defined as overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Survival analysis was conducted by Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank method and Cox proportional hazard models to assess the predictive factors. Results:Patients were followed up for 0.9-8.2 years. Among 70 patients, 31.4% (22/70) had disease progression and 24.3% (17/70) died. As for OS, there were significantly differences between patients with SUV max of primary lesion≥10 and <10 (4.6 vs 7.6 years), with size of primary lesion >3 cm and ≤3 cm (4.8 vs 7.4 years), with unilateral mediastinal or hilar HML and bilateral sides or without HML (4.4 vs 7.4 years), with SUV max of mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes ≥5.0 and <5.0 (3.8 vs 7.3 years) ( χ2 values 10.135-15.238, all P<0.01), as well as PFS (3.9 vs 6.7, 3.8 vs 6.6, 3.8 vs 6.4, 3.3 vs 6.3 years; χ2 values 8.410-14.600, all P<0.01). Cox multivariate analysis demonstrated that the size and SUV max of primary lesion were independent predictive factors of OS and PFS (all P<0.01). Moreover, the distribution of mediastinal or hilar HML had marginal significance in predicting OS ( P=0.051). Conclusions:Size and SUV max of primary lesion in preoperative 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging are predictive factors for the survival of postoperative NSCLC. The distribution of the mediastinal or hilar HML may have significance for the survival prediction of postoperative NSCLC.