Use of pretreatment metabolic tumor volumes on PET-CT to predict the survival of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of esophagus treated by curative surgery.

Aim: To investigate the prognostic role of the pretreatment metabolic tumor volume (MTV) as determined by Positron emission tomography--computed tomography (PET-CT) in patients with esophageal cancer undergoing curative surgery.

Patients And Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data of 26 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus, who underwent 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose PET-CT before surgery. MTVs were defined as the volumes with FDG uptake above a standardized uptake value (SUV) of 2.