Long-term assessment of clinical parameters and positron emission tomography parameters in predicting recurrence in uterine cervical cancer patients receiving definitive chemoradiotherapy.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the prognostic value of clinical factors and metabolic parameters measured using fluorodeoxyglucose PET (FDG-PET/CT) in predicting disease recurrence, as well as distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), local recurrence-free survival (LRFS), and overall survival (OS) in patients with uterine cervical cancer who received definitive chemoradiotherapy.

Methods: The clinical data and FDG-PET parameters, including standardized uptake value (SUV), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) of 194 patients with biopsy-confirmed squamous cell carcinoma of cervical cancer were retrospectively analyzed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to ascertain prognostic factors associated with DMFS, LRFS, and OS.

Results: With a median follow-up of 12.5 years, 96 patients (49.5%) presented with disease recurrence, at a median of 9.9 months after chemoradiotherapy. Patients who experienced recurrence had significantly higher values for all FDG-PET parameters compared to patients who did not. In multivariate regression analysis, lymph node metastasis, MTV, and SUV mean were significantly correlated with distant metastasis, while local recurrence was only predicted by SUV max . Lymph node metastasis, high MTV, SUV mean , and TLG predicted shorter DMFS, while only the primary tumor SUV max predicted LRFS. Age, regional nodal metastasis, and higher MTV independently predicted shorter OS in multivariate analysis.

Conclusion: We found that metabolic parameters derived from FDG-PET/CT could serve as surrogates for disease recurrence in patients with cervical cancer who were treated with definitive chemoradiotherapy. Patients at high risk of distant metastasis could be defined using SUV mean and MTV, and for local recurrence, by using SUV max .