Abstract
Purpose
This retrospective study was done to examine whether the heterogeneity in primary tumor F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) and 18F-3′-fluoro-3′-deoxythymidine (18F-FLT) distribution can predict prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer who received surgery.
Methods
The enrolled 32 patients with colorectal cancer underwent both 18F-FDG- and 18F-FLT-PET/CT studies before surgery. Clinicopathological factors, stage, SUVmax, SUVmean, metabolic tumor volume (SUV ≥ 2.5), total lesion glycolysis, total lesion proliferation and seven texture heterogeneity parameters (coefficient of variation, local parameters: entropy, homogeneity, and dissimilarity; and regional parameters: intensity variability [IV], size-zone variability [SZV], and zone percentage [ZP]) were obtained. Progression free survival (PFS) was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Prognostic significance was assessed by Cox proportional hazards analysis.
Results
Eight patients had eventually come to progression, and 24 patients were alive without progression during clinical follow-up [mean follow-up PFS; 55.9 months (range, 1-72)]. High stage (p = 0.004), high 18F-FDG-IV (p = 0.015), high 18F-FDG-SZV (p = 0.013) and high 18F-FLT-entropy (p = 0.015) were significant in predicting poor 5-year PFS. Other parameters did not predict the disease outcome. At bivariate analysis, disease event hazards ratios for 18F-FDG-IV and 18F-FDG-SZV remained significant when adjusted for stage and 18F-FLT-entropy (18F-FDG-IV; p = 0.004 [adjusted for stage], 0.007 [adjusted for 18F-FLT-entropy]; 18F-FDG-SZV; p = 0.028 [adjusted for stage], 0.040 [adjusted for 18F-FLT-entropy]).
Conclusion
18F-FDG PET heterogeneity parameters, IV and SZV, have a potential to be strong prognostic factors to predict PFS of patients with surgically resected colorectal cancer and are more useful than 18F-FLT-PET/CT heterogeneity parameters.
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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 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Nakajo, M., Kajiya, Y., Tani, A. et al. A pilot study for texture analysis of 18F-FDG and 18F-FLT-PET/CT to predict tumor recurrence of patients with colorectal cancer who received surgery. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 44, 2158–2168 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-017-3787-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-017-3787-0