7224 Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in both men and women in the United States. Over 80% of patients are diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and approximately 30% of patients with NSCLC present with resectable disease. Nearly 40–50% of patients with resected stage I NSCLC develop recurrent disease. Currently there are no clinical, radiological, or molecular markers to predict outcomes following surgery in early stage NSCLC. Positron emission tomography (PET) with 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG-PET) is used commonly in the staging work up of NSCLC. The standardized uptake value (SUV) is a semiquantitive measure of FDG uptake that correlates with tumor doubling time. We studied the relationship between the maximum preoperative tumor SUV (SUVmax) for FDG and disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with resected stage I NSCLC. Methods: We identified 153 consecutive patients diagnosed with stage I NSCLC between 1999 and 2003 who had undergone FDG-PET before curative surgical resection. Data were collected regarding stage distribution, histology, recurrence and survival. No patient in this cohort received adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy. SUVmax above and below the median was correlated with DFS. Results: Of 153 patients with stage I NSCLC, 90 (59%) had T1 and 63 (41%) had T2 tumors. The mean and median follow-up time for the cohort was 2.9 and 3.1 years respectively. The mean and median SUVs were 7.0 and 6.0 respectively. The 5-year DFS categorized by SUVmax < 6 vs. SUVmax ≥ 6 was 62% vs. 46 (p = 0.0036) for the entire cohort; 64% vs. 54% (p = 0.20) for the T1 subset; and 60% vs. 40% (p = 0.07) for the T2 subset. Conclusions: High SUVmax (≥ 6) on preoperative FDG-PET is a predictor of poor outcome in resectable stage I NSCLC. [Table: see text]
Expression of molecular markers in mediastinal nodes from resected stage I non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC): prognostic impact and potential role as markers of occult micrometastases
