Prognostic impact of clinicopathological features and expression of biomarkers related to (18)F-FDG uptake in esophageal cancer

To analyze the association between pretreatment 18-F-fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) uptake and characteristics of aggressive tumor biology in predicting outcome in esophageal cancer (EC). Tumor FDG-uptake was measured by maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) in 47 patients undergoing esophagectomy with curative intent. ROC analyses were used to predict an optimal SUVmax cutoff for survival. Expression of hexokinase-II (HK-II), glucose transporter I (GLUT-I), hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-Iα), vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C), p53, and proliferative activity (Ki-67) were correlated with SUVmax values and clinicopathological characteristics. A SUVmax > 3.67 predicted a significantly lower disease-free survival (DFS) and distant recurrence-free survival (p = 0.022 and p = 0.005). High HK-II expression was correlated with reduced SUVmax values (p = 0.002) and was significantly higher in esophageal adenocarcinoma compared with squamous cell carcinoma (p = 0.005). Preoperative high FDG uptake in primary tumors was associated with nodal metastases (pN1; Spearman correlation 0.39, p = 0.01). We found no positive correlation between SUVmax and GLUT-1, HK-1, HIF-Iα 1, VEGF-C, p53, and Ki-67 expression. High preoperative FDG-uptake strongly predicts poor survival outcome and is associated with lymph node metastases in EC patients. HK-II expression was related to SUVmax and DFS.