The Association of Preoperative PET-CT and Survival in Patients with Resectable Cervical Cancer

Purpose: No randomized study with a long-term follow-up has investigated the effect of pretreatment 18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography ((18)FDG-PET–CT) on the survival of patients with stage IB-IIA cervical cancer receiving curative surgery. Therefore, in this propensity score–matched, population-based cohort study, we investigated the effect of preoperative (18)FDG-PET–CT on the survival outcomes of patients with potentially resectable cervical cancer. Patients and Methods: We included 2550 patients with stage IB-IIA cervical cancer receiving curative surgery with complete data on clinical stages. The patients were categorized into two 1:4 propensity, score–matched groups depending on whether they underwent pretreatment (18)FDG-PET–CT, and their outcomes were compared. Results: We included 2030 and 520 patients with cervical cancer in the non-pretreatment and pretreatment PET–CT groups, respectively. Multivariable analyses revealed that the most prominent correlation between preoperative PET–CT and all-cause death was observed in the patients with stage IB–IIA cervical cancer receiving surgery (aHR [95% CI]: 1.16 [0.83–1.63]; p = 0.3752). Conclusions: Preoperative (18)FDG-PET–CT was not associated with longer survival in the patients with clinical stage IB–IIA cervical cancer receiving curative surgery.