Predictive Role of Preoperative Whole-Body 18F-FDG PET/CT for Risk Stratification of Early-Stage (FIGO I-IIA) Cervical Cancer Patients Treated by Surgery

The aim of the present study was to investigate the predictive value of maximum standardized uptake value (SUV ) measured on preoperative F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ( F-FDG PET/CT) in International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO 2009) stage I-IIA cervical cancer patients who were treated with radical hysterectomy. A total of 47 patients with FIGO stage I-IIA cervical cancer who were evaluated preoperatively with biopsy and F-FDG PET/CT followed by radical hysterectomy were included in the study. Correlation between SUV and pathological risk factors or survival was studied. The mean SUV was significantly higher in patients with large tumor size (≥4 cm), advanced stage (IIA>IB>IA) and depth of invasion >50%. No significant difference was noted in SUV between patients with and without pelvic lymph node involvement (P=0.639). SUV of the primary tumor with and without lymph-vascular invasion were 12.95 and 10.35, respectively (P=0.5). No significant difference was noted between patients with high SUV and low SUV with regards to overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), using an optimal cut-off value of 7.65 for OS and DFS obtained from receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Patient with tumor size >4cm had 5.9 times more probability of mortality compared to tumor size