title: Prognostic Significance of Standardized Uptake Value on18Fluorine-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography in Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma.
abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic significance of standardized uptake value (SUV) on 18 fluorine-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Thirty-four patients who have histologically proven NPC and underwent18F-FDG PET/CT were included in this study. After18F-FDG PET/CT, all the patients received radiation therapy and 32 of them received concomitant weekly chemotherapy. The maximum SUV (SUVmax) at the primary tumor and the SUVmaxof the highest neck nodes were determined. The SUVmax-T ranged from 5.00 to 30.80 (mean: 15.37 ± 6.10) and there was no difference between SUVmax-T values for early and late stages (P= 0.99). The SUVmax-N ranged from 3.10 to 23.80 (mean: 13.23 ± 5.76). There was no correlation between SUVmax-T and SUVmax-N (r= 0.111,P= 0.532). There was no difference between the SUVmax-T and the positivity of neck lymph nodes (P= 0.169). The ability of SUVmaks-N to predict stage was obtained by a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The area under the curve is 0.856 and the best cut-off value is 7.88. There was a good correlation between SUVmax-N and stage. While the mean SUVmax-T for the alive patients was slightly lower than that for the dead (14.65 ± 5.58 vs. 20.30 ± 7.92,P= 0.061), the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant difference for SUVmax-N between these two groups (P: 0.494). Cox-regression analysis showed that an increase in SUVmax-T and SUVmax-N was associated with death risk (relative risk [RR]: 1.13,P= 0.078 and RR: 1.052,P= 0.456, respectively). SUVmax-T and SUVmax-N were independent prognostic factors for survival in NPC patients. This will help the clinicians in choosing suitable candidates for more aggressive treatment modalities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Şeyda
authors.initials: Ş
authors.lastname: Türkölmez
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Sabire Yılmaz
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Aksoy
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Elif
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Özdemir
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Zuhal
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Kandemir
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Nilüfer
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yıldırım
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Atiye Yılmaz
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Özsavran
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Ankara Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Mehmet Faik
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Çetindağ
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Ankara University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Kenan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Köse
keywords: Maximum standardized uptake value; nasopharyngeal cancer; prognostic significance