title: [18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose uptake by positron emission tomography predicts outcomes for oropharyngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer treated with definitive radiotherapy.
abstract: This study evaluated the prognostic significance of the maximum standardized uptake value of the primary site (pSUVmax) in 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) scans of patients with oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer who were treated using definitive radiotherapy. The study included 86 patients who were primarily treated with radiotherapy for oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer. Sixty-nine patients underwent concurrent chemotherapy. The associations between pre-treatment pSUVmax and treatment outcomes were evaluated. The most appropriate pSUVmax cut-off value for predicting disease-free survival (DFS) and local control (LC) was selected using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The median follow-up time for surviving patients was 60 months, while the median survival time in the entire patient cohort was 55 months. A pSUVmax cut-off value of 9.0 showed the best discriminative performance. Five-year OS and DFS rates were 65.9% and 60.0%, respectively. In univariate analyses, pSUVmax (p= 0.009), T-stage (p= 0.001), N-stage (p= 0.039), and clinical stage (p= 0.017) were identified as significant prognostic predictors for DFS. The multivariate analysis did not identify any statistically significant factors, but the association between pSUVmax and DFS was borderline significant (p= 0.055). Interestingly, pSUVmax was predictive of local controllability in T1-T2 disease (p= 0.024), but there was no significant association for T3-T4 disease (p= 0.735). In this study, pSUVmax was predictive of DFS and LC in patients with oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer that was treated with definitive radiotherapy. pSUVmax was strongly associated with LC in T1-T2 disease.
authors.affiliation: Division of Radiation Oncology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japa.
authors.forename: Takeaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ishihara
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kitajima
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suenaga
authors.affiliation: Division of Radiation Oncology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japa.
authors.forename: Yasuo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ejima
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
authors.forename: Hirokazu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Komatsu
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Otsuki
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
authors.forename: Ken-Ichi
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Nibu
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Oncology/Hematology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kiyota
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Japan.
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.affiliation: Division of Radiation Oncology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japa.
authors.forename: Ryohei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sasaki
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D007012:Hypopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010610:Pharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000532:radiotherapy; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies
chemical_list: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18
keywords: 18F-FDG-PET; definitive radiotherapy; pharyngeal cancer; prognostic predictor; standardized uptake value (SUV)