Predictive value of pre-therapy 18F-FDG PET/CT for the outcome of 18F-FDG PET-guided radiotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive role of pre-therapy fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake parameters of primary tumour in head and neck cancer (HNC) patients undergoing intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) with simultaneous integrated boost (SIB) on FDG-positive volume-positron emission tomography (PET) gross tumour volume (PET-GTV). METHODS: This retrospective study included 19 patients (15 men and 4 women, mean age 59.2 years, range 23-81 years) diagnosed with HNC between 2005 and 2011. Of 19 patients, 15 (79 %) had stage III-IV. All patients underwent FDG PET/CT before treatment. Metabolic indexes of primary tumour, including metabolic tumour volume (MTV), maximum and mean standardized uptake value (SUVmax, SUVmean) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were considered. Partial volume effect correction (PVC) was performed for SUVmean and TLG estimation. Correlations between PET/CT parameters and 2-year disease-free survival (DFS), local recurrence-free survival (LRFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) were assessed. Median patient follow-up was 19.2 months (range 4-24 months). RESULTS: MTV, TLG and PVC-TLG predicting patients' outcome with respect to all the considered local and distant disease control endpoints (LRFS, DMFS and DFS) were 32.4 cc, 469.8 g and 547.3 g, respectively. SUVmean and PVC-SUVmean cut-off values predictive of LRFS and DFS were 10.8 and 13.3, respectively. PVC was able to compensate errors up to 25 % in the primary HNC tumour uptake. Moreover, PVC enhanced the statistical significance of the results. CONCLUSION: FDG PET/CT uptake parameters are predictors of patients' outcome and can potentially identify patients with higher risk of treatment failure that could benefit from more aggressive approaches. Application of PVC is recommended for accurate measurement of PET parameters.