Preliminary study of brain glucose metabolism changes in patients with lung cancer of different histological types.

Background: Cerebral glucose metabolism changes are always observed in patients suffering from malignant tumors. This preliminary study aimed to investigate the brain glucose metabolism changes in patients with lung cancer of different histological types.

Methods: One hundred and twenty patients with primary untreated lung cancer, who visited People's Hospital of Zhengzhou University from February 2012 to July 2013, were divided into three groups based on histological types confirmed by biopsy or surgical pathology, which included adenocarcinoma (52 cases), squamous cell carcinoma (43 cases), and small-cell carcinoma (25 cases). The whole body 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) of these cases was retrospectively studied. The brain PET data of three groups were analyzed individually using statistical parametric maps (SPM) software, with 50 age-matched and gender-matched healthy controls for comparison.

Results: The brain resting glucose metabolism in all three lung cancer groups showed regional cerebral metabolic reduction. The hypo-metabolic cerebral regions were mainly distributed at the left superior and middle frontal, bilateral superior and middle temporal and inferior and middle temporal gyrus. Besides, the hypo-metabolic regions were also found in the right inferior parietal lobule and hippocampus in the small-cell carcinoma group. The area of the total hypo-metabolic cerebral regions in the small-cell carcinoma group (total voxel value 3255) was larger than those in the adenocarcinoma group (total voxel value 1217) and squamous cell carcinoma group (total voxel value 1292).

Conclusions: The brain resting glucose metabolism in patients with lung cancer shows regional cerebral metabolic reduction and the brain hypo-metabolic changes are related to the histological types of lung cancer.