A Pilot Study of (18)F-Alfatide PET/CT Imaging for Detecting Lymph Node Metastases in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Angiogenesis plays a key role in tumor development and α(v)β(3) integrin are overexpressed on the endothelial cell surface of newly forming vessels. (18)F-Alfatide has favorable properties for α(v)β(3) integrin targeting and showed potential for imaging angiogenesis with Positron Emission Tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT). In this study, 13 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who underwent (18)F-Alfatide PET/CT before surgery were enrolled. The uptake of all dissected lymph nodes (LNs) of (18)F-Alfatide were assessed visually and analyzed with a maximum and mean standard uptake value (SUV(max), SUV(mean)) and SUV ratios. LN metastases were pathologically confirmed and 20 of 196 LNs were malignant. All malignant LNs were successfully visualized on (18)F-Alfatide PET/CT in patients and the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy was 100.0%, 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. SUV(max), SUV(mean) and SUV ratios in malignant LNs were significantly higher than in benign LNs for NSCLC patients (P < 0.001). The same result was observed in patients with adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma (P < 0.001). The (18)F-Alfatide parameter shows high sensitivity (83.9–100%), specificity (78.6–96.7%) and accuracy (81.7–96.9%) according to thresholds calculated from receiver operating characteristic curve. Our results suggest that (18)F-Alfatide PET/CT is valuable in the diagnosis of metastatic LNs for NSCLC patients.