The significance of SUV of 18-FDG PET for the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer

17032 Background: To explore the possibility that the standardized uptake value(SUV) of positron emission tomography(PET) could be a prognostic factor for lung cancer and whether it holds more significance than clinical stage,the current predominant prognostic factor for NSCLC patients. To assess the possible connection between the SUV and clinical and histopathologic characteristics of lung cancer patients(especially the histology), in order to build a comprehensive picture for the potential application of SUV. Methods: Eighty-two patients taking PET examination before receiving any treatment were analysed, the majority of which(fifty) consisted of patients treated with multiple modality treatment where surgery played a central role. 1-year and 3-year survival(OS) Rate, Progress Free Survival(PFS) Rate were calculated by Kaplan-Meier method and evaluated with the log-rank test.The prognostic significance was assessed by univariate and multivariate analyses.Nonparametric tests were performed to determine whether there was valuable difference amid each SUV group classified by certain clinical or histopathologic characteristic. Results: A SUV cutoff of 5.0 for the primary tumor showed the greatest discriminative value for overall survival.As for the PFS,the cufoff is 4.0. The SUV for the primary tumor was a significant predictor for both overall survival and PFS, based on the result that the relative risk was 7.075 and 2.719 respectively. As a result of multivariate analyse,the prognostic value of SUV and Clinical Staging was independent of each other, and the value of the SUV was considerably higher than the latter. The SUV for the small-cell lung cancer group was statistically higher than the non-small-cell lung cancer group. And there was significant overall discrepancy across the groups sorted by the degree of differentiation. Conclusions: The SUV of the primary tumor has the potential to be the leading prognostic factor for patients treated by multiple modality treatment, leading to substantially improved management for lung cancer patients. And there could be close connection between SUV and histopathologic or differentiation feature of lung cancer tissue, although it is still open to discussion. Analysis for larger number of cases could settle the issue. No significant financial relationships to disclose.