title: 18F-FDG PET/CT as a potential predictor of survival in patient with oesophageal cancer: a preliminary result.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A study was undertaken to investigate the value of pretreatment PET-CT in predicting survival in patients with oesophageal cancer (OC).
  
  
  METHODS
  Between June 2010 and December 2011, 18 consecutive OC patients median (61.00 ± 12.07 years) with median survival of 7.5 month had a pretreatment PET-CT scan. Staging of the disease was made in accordance to the American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system (7th edition) and grouped as stage I-IIA and stage IIB-IV. Maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), size of a primary tumour and the presence of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-avid lymph nodes were evaluated for all patients. Survival was analysed using the Kaplan-Meier product limit method and Cox proportional hazards regression model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PET-CT stages I-IIA and IIB-IV had a 1-year survival of 50% and 25%, respectively. Patient with size of primary tumour (<4.5 cm) had significantly (p < 0.036) better survival than those with large size (>4.5 cm). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that SUVmax of >5.5 in the primary tumour [hazard ratio (HR) 23.017; 95% confidence interval, p = 0.038] and the presence of FDG-avid lymph node (HR 1.248; p = 0.028) were strongly predictive of poor overall survival on multivariate analysis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pretreatment 18F-FDG PET-CT SUVmax of a primary tumour and the presence of FDG-avid lymph nodes independently predict survival in patients with oesophageal carcinoma which may potentially be used as surrogate markers for prognostic and therapeutic purposes.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging, University Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia, ahmadsaadff@gmail.com.
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Fathinul Fikri
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dharmendran
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vikneswaran
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Nordin
mesh_terms: D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D004947:Esophagus / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18