Pretreatment (18) F-FDG uptake heterogeneity can predict survival in patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma——a retrospective study

BACKGROUND: Intratumoural heterogeneity has been demonstrated to be a strong indicator of malignant transformation. Our study was to investigate pretreatment (18) F-FDG parameters, including (18) F-FDG based heterogeneity for predicting survival in patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). METHODS: Forty newly diagnosed, biopsy-proven locally advanced NPC patients who underwent (18) F-FDG PET/CT were retrospectively included. The following PET parameters were assessed: maximum and mean standardised uptake value (SUVmax and SUVmean), metabolic tumour volume (MTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG) and intratumoral heterogeneity index (HI). The previous parameters were recorded both for the primary tumor (-T) and neck lymph nodes (-N). The following endpoints were evaluated: local control (LC), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). The survival analyses were performed using the Kaplan–Meier method. Univariate analysis was performed using the log-rank test. RESULTS: Patients with a lower HI-T, SUVmax-T, SUVmean-T and TLG-T had significantly better 2-year LC. In predicting PFS, we found that both lower HI-T and HI-N had significantly better prognosis. However, the OS was only statistically associated with HI-T. CONCLUSION: (18) F-FDG based heterogeneity appears to be an potential predicator of patient survival after treatment.