Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of percentage variation of metabolic tumor burden in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
Methods: Patients referred to undergo (18) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)-CT for staging of HNSCC were included in this study. Using a dual-phase method, standardized uptake value maximum (SUVmax), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were recorded and respectively used to calculate retention index (RI), %ΔMTV, and %ΔTLG. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) was determined by Kaplan-Meier method and compared with studied PET parameters in univariate and multivariate.
Results: Seventy patients (61 men/9 women; 62.9 ± 9.1 years old) were included. In univariate, SUVmax, RI, MTV, and TLG (p ≤ .0001) were significantly correlated with RFS, unlike %ΔMTV (p = 137) and %ΔTLG (p = .517). In multivariate, RI (p = .005) and MTV (p = .022) persisted as independent prognostic factors.
Conclusion: Our results did not prove a prognostic interest of percentage variation of metabolic tumor burden in patients with HNSCC but confirmed that RI and MTV are independently correlated with RFS. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 38: E600-E606, 2016.
Keywords: dual-phase positron emission tomography (PET) imaging; head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; metabolic tumor burden; recurrence-free survival.
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.