18 F-FDG PET-CT during chemo-radiotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer: the early metabolic response correlates with the delivered radiation dose

Massaccesi Mariangela, Calcagni Maria, Spitilli Maria, Cocciolillo Fabrizio, Pelligrò Francesca, Bonomo Lorenzo, Valentini Vincenzo, Giordano, Giordano Alessandro

Description

To evaluate the metabolic changes on 18 F-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography integrated with computed tomography ( 18 F-FDG PET-CT) performed before, during and after concurrent chemo-radiotherapy in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); to correlate the metabolic response with the delivered radiation dose and with the clinical outcome. Methods Twenty-five NSCLC patients candidates for concurrent chemo-radiotherapy underwent 18 F-FDG PET-CT before treatment (pre-RT PET-CT), during the third week (during-RT PET-CT) of chemo-radiotherapy, and 4 weeks from the end of chemo-radiotherapy (post-RT PET-CT). The parameters evaluated were: the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) of the primary tumor, the SUVmax of the lymph nodes, and the Metabolic Tumor Volume (MTV). Results SUVmax of the tumor and MTV significantly (p=0.0001, p=0.002, respectively) decreased earlier during the third week of chemo-radiotherapy, with a further reduction 4 weeks from the end of treatment (p<0.0000, p<0.0002, respectively). SUVmax of lymph nodes showed a trend towards a reduction during chemo-radiotherapy (p=0.06) and decreased significantly (p=0.0006) at the end of treatment. There was a significant correlation (r=0.53, p=0.001) between SUVmax of the tumor measured at during-RT PET-CT and the total dose of radiotherapy reached at the moment of the scan. Disease progression free survival was significantly (p=0.01) longer in patients with complete metabolic response measured at post-RT PET-CT. Conclusions In patients with locally advanced NSCLC, 18 F-FDG PET-CT performed during and after treatment allows early metabolic modifications to be detected, and for this SUVmax is the more sensitive parameter. Further studies are needed to investigate the correlation between the metabolic modifications during therapy and the clinical outcome in order to optimize the therapeutic strategy. Since the metabolic activity during chemo-radiotherapy correlates with the cumulative dose of fractionated radiotherapy delivered at the moment of the scan, special attention should be paid to methodological aspects, such as the radiation dose reached at the time of PET.

Sujets

• Non-small cell lung carcinoma

Informations

• Publié par: biomed
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• Langue: English

Extrait

Massaccesiet al. Radiation Oncology2012,7:106 http://www.rojournal.com/content/7/1/106

R E S E A R C HOpen Access 18 FFDG PETCT during chemoradiotherapy in patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer: the early metabolic response correlates with the delivered radiation dose 1 3*3 32 Mariangela Massaccesi , Maria Lucia Calcagni, Maria Grazia Spitilli , Fabrizio Cocciolillo , Francesca Pelligrò , 2 13 Lorenzo Bonomo , Vincenzo Valentiniand Alessandro Giordano

Abstract 18 Background:To evaluate the metabolic changes onFfluoro2deoxyglucose positron emission tomography 18 integrated with computed tomography (FFDG PETCT) performed before, during and after concurrent chemo radiotherapy in patients with locally advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC); to correlate the metabolic response with the delivered radiation dose and with the clinical outcome. 18 Methods:Twentyfive NSCLC patients candidates for concurrent chemoradiotherapy underwentFFDG PETCT before treatment (preRT PETCT), during the third week (duringRT PETCT) of chemoradiotherapy, and 4 weeks from the end of chemoradiotherapy (postRT PETCT). The parameters evaluated were: the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) of the primary tumor, the SUVmax of the lymph nodes, and the Metabolic Tumor Volume (MTV). Results:SUVmax of the tumor and MTV significantly (p=0.0001, p=0.002, respectively) decreased earlier during the third week of chemoradiotherapy, with a further reduction 4 weeks from the end of treatment (p<0.0000, p<0.0002, respectively). SUVmax of lymph nodes showed a trend towards a reduction during chemoradiotherapy (p=0.06) and decreased significantly (p=0.0006) at the end of treatment. There was a significant correlation (r=0.53, p=0.001) between SUVmax of the tumor measured at duringRT PETCT and the total dose of radiotherapy reached at the moment of the scan. Disease progression free survival was significantly (p=0.01) longer in patients with complete metabolic response measured at postRT PETCT. 18 Conclusions:In patients with locally advanced NSCLC, FFDG PETCT performed during and after treatment allows early metabolic modifications to be detected, and for this SUVmax is the more sensitive parameter. Further studies are needed to investigate the correlation between the metabolic modifications during therapy and the clinical outcome in order to optimize the therapeutic strategy. Since the metabolic activity during chemo radiotherapy correlates with the cumulative dose of fractionated radiotherapy delivered at the moment of the scan, special attention should be paid to methodological aspects, such as the radiation dose reached at the time of PET. Keywords:18FFDG PETCT, NSCLC, Chemoradiotherapy, Metabolic response

* Correspondence: [e-mail] 3 Institutes of Nuclear Medicine, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo A. Gemelli, 8, 00168 Rome, Italy Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

© 2012 Massaccesi et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.