Correlation analysis of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT for the staging and treatment effect assessment of breast cancer

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Li, Yan^{a; 1} | Dai, Yongliang^{b; 1} | Guo, Youmin^a | Wang, Jiansheng^{c; *} | Duan, Xiaoyi^{a; *}

Affiliations: [a] Department of Medical Image, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China | [b] Department of CT, The Weapons Industry of 521 Hospital, Xi’an, China | [c] The Second Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding authors. Xiaoyi Duan and Jiansheng Wang, Department of Radiology and The Second Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, 277 West Yanta Road, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710061, China. E-mails: duanxiao_yi@126.com (X. Duan), wangjian_sheng@sina.com (J. Wang).

Note: [1] Yan Li and Yongliang Dai contributed equally to this work.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE:Since cancer treatment and outcome differ among the patients diagnosed with breast cancer at different stages, this study aims to elucidate the factors associated with PET/CT staging, treatment effect, and maximal standardized uptake value (SUVmax) in breast cancer patients. METHODS:Twenty-eight patients who underwent two PET/CT examinations with the complete pathological and immunohistochemical data were retrospectively reviewed. Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses were performed to investigate the relationships of patient PET/CT staging (first round PET/CT), treatment effect (comparison between the results of two rounds of PET/CT), and tumor SUVmax, with respect to patient age, tumor location, tumor long diameter, short diameter, time of first round PET/CT examination, histological type and grade, axillary lymph node metastasis rate, interval between the two PET/CT examinations, treatment method, and the expression of the estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), P53, and Ki67. RESULTS:PET/CT staging (first round PET/CT) relates to HER2 and Ki67 expression with the correlation coefficients of 0.432 and 0.552, and P-values of 0.022 and 0.002, respectively. The treatment effect (comparison between the results of two rounds of PET/CT) associates with tumor site and P53 expression in which the correlation coefficients are – 0.412 and 0.845, and P-values are 0.029 and 0.000, respectively. The measured SUVmax correlates well with the tumor long diameter, short diameter, and treatment effect in which the correlation coefficients are 0.943, 0.886, and 0.878, and P-values are 0.005, 0.019, and 0.02, respectively. CONCLUSIONS:Study results indicate that PET/CT staging and treatment effect associate well with SUVmax and immunohistochemical results of tumor, while SUVmax of tumor associates well with tumor size.

Keywords: PET/CT, FDG, breast cancer

DOI: 10.3233/XST-190544

Journal: Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 1131-1144, 2019