PMID: 9430467Jan 16, 1998Paper

Prediction of survival with fluorine-18-fluoro-deoxyglucose and PET in head and neck cancer

Journal of Nuclear Medicine : Official Publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine
H MinnH Joensuu

Abstract

The aim of this prospective study was to investigate if high uptake of 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) is associated with aggressiveness in head and neck cancer and low probability of survival. Thirty-seven patients with squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck underwent FDG-PET in the fasting state before cancer treatment. FDG uptake in primary tumor was quantitated as the standardized uptake value of FDG normalized to the predicted lean body mass (SUVlean, n = 37) and as the graphically determined metabolic rate for FDG (rMR[FDG], n = 34). Paraffin-embedded tumor samples were used for histologic evaluation, and expression of cytokeratin and Ki-67 antigen were assessed by immunohistochemistry. Interobserver agreement for the determination of quantitative uptake of FDG in tumors was excellent (r2 = 0.996, p < 0.00001), and all 37 primary tumors were visualized. A high uptake of FDG as assessed by SUVlean was associated with a higher than the median mitotic count (p = 0.01), absence of keratinization (p = 0.03), low or moderate histological grade of differentiation (p = 0.046) and advanced stage (p = 0.03), but not with Ki-67 expression (p = 0.11). The overall survival of patients with a SUVlean lower than or equal to the...Continue Reading

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