Abstract:
Objective To investigate the prognostic value of primary and metastatic metabolic parameters of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose(FDG) PET/CT imaging before chemoradiotherapy in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).
Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on 106 patients 98 males, 8 females, aged (63.9±8.8) years with metastatic ESCC who received radiochemotherapy and underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT from November 2013 to April 2021 in the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University. Clinical factors included age, sex, primary location, clinical stage, degree of differentiation, and treatment. Using 40% maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) as the threshold, delineate the region of interest (ROI) of the primary and metastatic lesions of esophageal cancer before treatment. Metabolic parameters included SUVmax of primary lesion, metabolic tumor volume (MTV) of primary lesion (MTVp), total lesion glycolysis (TLG) of primary lesion (TLGp), MTV of whole body (MTVwb), TLG of whole body (TLGwb), and SUVmax, MTV, TLG ratio of metastatic lesion to primary lesion (R-SUVmax, R-MTV, R-TLG). Kaplan-Meier method and Log-Rank test were used for univariate analysis and multivariate analysis was conducted by Cox proportional hazards model to predict the prognostic factors affecting progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients.
Results Univariate analysis showed that T stage, MTVp, TLGp, MTVwb, TLGwb and R-TLG were prognostic factors for PFS and OS in ESCC patients receiving chemoradiotherapy (χ2=4.105−27.992, all P<0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that T stage and R-TLG were independent prognostic factors for PFS (HR=2.210, 95%CI: 1.307−3.737, P=0.003; HR=3.118, 95%CI: 1.414−6.875, P=0.005) and OS (HR=1.885, 95%CI: 1.072−3.317, P=0.028; HR=2.584, 95%CI: 1.186−5.629, P=0.017) in ESCC patients. Combined with T stage and R-TLG, the patients were divided into low-risk, medium-risk and high-risk groups. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in PFS and OS among the groups (χ2=38.392, 19.857; both P<0.001).
Conclusion T stage and 18F-FDG PET/CT metabolic parameter R-TLG were independent prognostic factors for PFS and OS in ESCC patients before chemoradiotherapy.