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Correlation between tumour characteristics, SUV measurements, metabolic tumour volume, TLG and textural features assessed with 18F-FDG PET in a large cohort of oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer patients

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The study was designed to evaluate 1) the relationship between PET image textural features (TFs) and SUVs, metabolic tumour volume (MTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG) and tumour characteristics in a large prospective and homogenous cohort of oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer (BC) patients, and 2) the capability of those parameters to predict response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).

Methods

171 consecutive patients with large or locally advanced ER+ BC without distant metastases underwent an 18F-FDG PET examination before NAC. The primary tumour was delineated with an adaptive threshold segmentation method. Parameters of volume, intensity and texture (entropy, homogeneity, contrast and energy) were measured and compared with tumour characteristics determined on pre-treatment breast biopsy (Wilcoxon rank-sum test). The correlation between PET-derived parameters was determined using Spearman’s coefficient. The relationship between PET features and pathological findings was determined using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test.

Results

Spearman’s coefficients between SUVmax and TFs were 0.43, 0.24, -0.43 and -0.15 respectively for entropy, homogeneity, energy and contrast; they were higher between MTV and TFs: 0.99, 0.86, -0.99 and -0.87. All TFs showed a significant association with the histological type (IDC vs. ILC; 0.02 < P < 0.03) but didn’t with immunohistochemical characteristics. SUVmax and TLG predicted the pathological response (P = 0.0021 and P = 0.02 respectively); TFs didn’t (P: 0.27, 0.19, 0.94, 0.19 respectively for entropy, homogeneity, energy and contrast).

Conclusions

The correlation of TFs was poor with SUV parameters and high with MTV. TFs showed a significant association with the histological type. Finally, while SUVmax and TLG were able to predict response to NAC, TFs failed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Saint-Louis Hospital, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris, 1 avenue Claude Vellefaux, 75475, Paris Cedex 10, France

    Charles Lemarignier, Antoine Martineau, Laetitia Vercellino, Pascal Merlet & David Groheux

  2. Breast Diseases Unit, Saint-Louis Hospital, Paris, France

    Luis Teixeira & Marc Espié

  3. University Sorbonne Paris Cité, INSERM/CNRS UMR944/7212, Paris, France

    Charles Lemarignier, Luis Teixeira, Marc Espié & David Groheux

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  1. Charles Lemarignier
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  2. Antoine Martineau
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  3. Luis Teixeira
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  5. Marc Espié
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  6. Pascal Merlet
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Correspondence to Charles Lemarignier.

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Funding

This study was in part supported by an academic grant (“Translational research in oncology” INCa-DHOS-5697).

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All the authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the principles of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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For this ancillary study, written consent was not required.

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Lemarignier, C., Martineau, A., Teixeira, L. et al. Correlation between tumour characteristics, SUV measurements, metabolic tumour volume, TLG and textural features assessed with 18F-FDG PET in a large cohort of oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer patients. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 44, 1145–1154 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-017-3641-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-017-3641-4

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