Intracellular hypoxia measured by (18)F-fluoromisonidazole positron emission tomography has prognostic impact in patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer

BACKGROUND: Hypoxia is a key driver of cancer progression. We evaluated the prognostic impact of (18)F-fluoromisonidazole (FMISO) prior to treatment in patients with breast cancer. METHODS: Forty-four patients with stage II/III primary breast cancer underwent positron emission tomography/computed with (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET/CT) and FMISO. After measurement by FDG-PET/CT, the tissue-to-blood ratio (TBR) was obtained using FMISO-PET/CT. FMISO-TBR was compared for correlation with clinicopathological factors, disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). Multiplex cytokines were analyzed for the correlation of FMISO-TBR. RESULTS: Tumors with higher nuclear grade and negativities of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor had significantly higher FMISO-TBR than other tumors. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that patients with a higher FMISO-TBR (cutoff, 1.48) had a poorer prognosis of DFS (p = 0.0007) and OS (p = 0.04) than those with a lower FMISO-TBR. Multivariate analysis indicated that higher FMISO-TBR and ER negativity were independent predictors of shorter DFS (p = 0.01 and 0.03). Higher FMISO-TBR was associated with higher plasma levels of angiogenic hypoxic markers such as vascular endothelial growth factor, transforming growth factor-α, and interleukin 8. CONCLUSIONS: FMISO-PET/CT is useful for assessing the prognosis of patients with breast cancer, but it should be stratified by ER status. TRIAL REGISTRATION: UMIN Clinical Trials Registry, UMIN000006802. Registered on 1 December 2011. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13058-018-0970-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.