The prognostic impact of 18F-FDG PET SUVmax in patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Aim: The maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) enhances clinical prediction in non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). This study aimed to investigate whether SUVmax could serve as a prognostic factor and improve clinical prognostication. Methods: This retrospective study included 86 patients with NSCLC who underwent surgical resection. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, the SUVmax cut-off value was 12.3. Patients with SUVmax values below 12.3 were classified as Group A, while those with values above 12.3 were designated as Group B. Survival analyses were performed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Overall survival was defined as the time from diagnosis to death. Confidence intervals were reported at 95%, and a p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. The variables analyzed for survival included gender, age, surgical approach, histopathological subtype of lung cancer, cancer stage, T score, and N score. Results: Survival analyses revealed statistically significant associations between SUVmax and age (p=0.043), gender (p=0.060), surgical approach (p=0.037), and histopathological subtype (p=0.026). Due to insufficient sample size within subgroups, separate p-values were calculated for each stage, T score, and N score. Based on the obtained p-values, no statistically significant correlation was found between SUVmax and overall survival across different stages, T scores, or N scores, except for stage 1A and T1b. Conclusion: SUVmax contributes to determining appropriate diagnostic and treatment protocols and aids in predicting the prognosis of the disease.