Background: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the correlation between the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), size of primary lung lesion, disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with stage I and II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 2 years follow-up.
Patients and methods: Forty-nine patients with stage I-II NSCLC were included in this study. Pre-surgical 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron-emission tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) study was performed for all patients. The relationship between SUVmax, tumour size and clinical outcome was measured. The cut-off value for SUVmax and tumour size with the best prognostic significance, probability of DFS and the correlation between SUVmax and the response to therapy were calculated.
Results: There was a statistically significant correlation between SUVmax and DFS (p = 0.029). The optimal cut-offs were 9.00 for SUVmax (p = 0.0013) and 30mm for tumour size (p = 0.0028). Patients with SUVmax > 9 and primary lesion size > 30 mm had an expected 2years-DFS of 37.5%, while this rose to 90% if the tumour was <30 mm and/or SUVmax was <9.
Conclusions: In stage I-II, SUVmax and tumour size might be helpful to identify the subgroup of patients with high chance for recurrence.
Keywords: 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography; disease-free survival; maximum standardized uptake value; non-small cell lung cancer; overall survival.