Radiation Oncology (May 2007)

Correlating metabolic and anatomic responses of primary lung cancers to radiotherapy by combined F-18 FDG PET-CT imaging

  • Grills Inga,
  • Yan Di,
  • Kestin Larry,
  • Chundru Suyra,
  • Bong Jeffery S,
  • Schmidt Joseph,
  • Wong Ching-yee O,
  • Gaskill Marianne,
  • Cheng Vincent,
  • Martinez Alvaro A,
  • Fink-Bennett Darlene

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-717X-2-18
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 1
p. 18

Abstract

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Abstract Background To correlate the metabolic changes with size changes for tumor response by concomitant PET-CT evaluation of lung cancers after radiotherapy. Methods 36 patients were studied pre- and post-radiotherapy with18FDG PET-CT scans at a median interval of 71 days. All of the patients were followed clinically and radiographically after a mean period of 342 days for assessment of local control or failure rates. Change in size (sum of maximum orthogonal diameters) was correlated with that of maximum standard uptake value (SUV) of the primary lung cancer before and after conventional radiotherapy. Results There was a significant reduction in both SUV and size of the primary cancer after radiotherapy (p Conclusion Correlating and incorporating metabolic change by PET into size change by concomitant CT is more sensitive in assessing therapeutic response than CT alone.