Oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma: relationship between fluorine-18 fludeoxyglucose positron emission tomography CT maximum standardised uptake value, metabolic tumour volume, and tumour, node and metastasis classification.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to evaluate the relationships between primary tumour, maximum standardised uptake value, metabolic tumour volume and seventh edition American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) classification in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients. METHODS: Fluorine-18 fludeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)-CT scans of 41 consecutive newly diagnosed OSCC patients were retrospectively reviewed. Maximum standard uptake value (SUV(max)) and metabolic tumour volume (MTV) were recorded. Two-tailed Spearman's correlation was used to analyse the relationships between the metabolic parameters and the AJCC staging system. RESULTS: Positive correlations were observed between SUV(max), MTV and tumour (T) stage, in addition to node (N) stage and AJCC stage. Both metabolic parameters were independent variables that significantly affected the N stage and AJCC stage, and SUV(max) was the only independent variable that significantly affected the T stage. CONCLUSION: The metabolic parameters derived from (18)F-FDG PET-CT were positively correlated with T, N and AJCC stage in primary OSCC. Our findings may suggest a complementary role of these parameters to seventh-edition AJCC staging in the prognostication of OSCC patients.