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Dual-time point 18F-FDG PET/CT for the staging of oesophageal cancer: the best diagnostic performance by retention index for N-staging in non-calcified lymph nodes

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

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of dual time point (DTP) 18F-FDG PET/CT in the staging of oesophageal cancer, especially in lymph node metastasis.

Methods

A total of 35 patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma who underwent surgical treatment without neoadjuvant chemotherapy were enrolled as a test set and another 19 patients were enrolled as a validation set. The DTP PET/CT scans were obtained in dual time points at 60 and 120 min each, following the administration of 18F-FDG. Visual analysis was performed and semiquantitative analysis was performed using several PET parameters such as maximal standardized uptake values (SUVmax), peak SUV (SUVpeak) and retention indexes using SUVmax (RImax) and SUVpeak (RIpeak).

Results

Primary oesophageal lesions exhibited a significant difference for SUVmax at each time point scan (ANOVA, p < 0.001). For nodal staging, a total of 276 non-calcified nodal stations of the test set were evaluated. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of visual analysis were 32.0% (8 of 25), 96.8% (243 of 251) and 90.9% (251 of 276) in the test set. Using ROC analysis, RImax had the largest area under the curve (AUC) to detect metastatic lymphadenopathy at the optimal cut-off value of 6% (AUC 0.853, P < 0.001) in the test set (sensitivity, specificity and accuracy; 80.0% (20 of 25), 94.8% (238 of 251) and 93.5% (258 of 276)). In the validation set (179 non-calcified nodal stations), sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of RImax at the optimal cut-off of 6% were 71.4% (5 of 7), 99.4% (171 of 172) and 98.4% (176 of 179), whereas those of visual analysis were 14.3% (1 of 7), 98.8% (170 of 172) and 95.5% (171 of 179).

Conclusions

The best diagnostic performance of nodal staging in patients with oesophageal cancer was achieved by application of RImax with a cut-off of more than 6% on DTP 18F-FDG PET/CT with the exclusion of calcified lymph nodes. Optimal clinical management in surgically-candidate oesophageal cancer patients could be achieved using the diagnostic flow on DTP 18F-FDG PET/CT.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by an intramural research fund from Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH 04-2013-0670) and grants of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare (grant number:HI14C1072) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant for the Global Core Research Center (GCRC) funded by the Korea MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT & Futher Planning)(No. NRF-2011-0030001).

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Correspondence to Chang Hyun Kang or Gi Jeong Cheon.

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All procedures were performed in accordance with the principles of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki (2000 revision). The study design and exemption from informed consent were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Seoul National University Hospital (1306-088-498).

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Informed consent was waived because of the retrospective nature of this study.

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Park, S., Paeng, J.C., Kang, C.H. et al. Dual-time point 18F-FDG PET/CT for the staging of oesophageal cancer: the best diagnostic performance by retention index for N-staging in non-calcified lymph nodes. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 45, 1317–1328 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-018-3981-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-018-3981-8

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