Background: Although advanced diagnostic and therapeutic development are achieved, lung cancer is the most leading cause of death. The stage of tumor is still the most important factor in determining the prognosis of cancer.
Purpose: The overarching goal of this study is to understand the relationship between the maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) and bone metastasis using the PET-CT approach in lung cancer prognosis and survival research.
Materials and methods: The PET-CT analyses of previously diagnosed totally 86 lung cancer patients were retrospectively studied. Primer tumor standard uptake values for each patient were meticulously calculated and correlated with bone metastasis.
Results: The demographics of the 86 patients is as follows; 79 man, 7 women with an age average of 59.44 ± 5.99, youngest being 46 and oldest 72. The number of small cell (SCC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients were 10 (11.6%) and 76 (88.4%), respectively. Additionally, bone metastasis was detected in 35 (40.7%) patients. The patients were divided in 4 categories based on the observed primer tumor sizes of 0-3 cm (23.3%), 3-5 cm (27.9%), 5-7 cm (32.6%), and larger than 7 cm (16.3%). Patients with bone metastasis (35 in total) were divided in 2 categories based on the number of metastasis of being less than 3 (45.7%) and more than 3 (54.5%). We also used SUVmax values to clarify the study. 31.4% of the total patients had the SUVmax value lower than 10 and 68.6% of them had higher. 68.6% of the bone metastasis patients had SUV values lower than 8 and 31.4% of them had higher than 8.
Conclusion: The present study suggests a 27.2% positive relationship in primary tumor SUVmax value and tumor size. Although the average bone metastasis SUV with primary tumor SUV values higher than 10 is higher than the ones lower than 10, this difference did not generate a statistically significant data for cancer patients.
Keywords: Bone metastasis; fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography; lung cancer; standard uptake value.