Effects of intratumoral inflammatory process on 18F-FDG uptake: pathologic and comparative study with 18F-fluoro-α-methyltyrosine PET/CT in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

UNLABELLED: The accurate depiction of both biologic and anatomic profiles of tumors has long been a challenge in PET imaging. An inflammation, which is innate in the carcinogenesis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), frequently complicates the image analysis because of the limitations of (18)F-FDG and maximum standardized uptake values (SUV(max)). New PET parameters, metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG), as well as (18)F-fluoro-α-methyltyrosine ((18)F-FAMT), a malignancy-specific amino acid-based PET radiotracer, are considered more comprehensive in tumor image analysis. Here, we showed the substantial effects of the intratumoral inflammatory process on (18)F-FDG uptake and further study the possibility of MTV and TLG to predict both tumor biology (proliferation activity) and anatomy (pathologic tumor volume).

METHODS: (18)F-FDG and (18)F-FAMT PET images from 25 OSCC patients were analyzed. SUV(max) on the tumor site was obtained. PET volume computerized-assisted reporting was used to generate a volume of interest to obtain MTV and TLG for (18)F-FDG and total lesion retention (TLR) for (18)F-FAMT. The whole tumor dissected from surgery was measured and sectioned for pathologic analysis of tumor inflammation grade and Ki-67 labeling index.

RESULTS: The high SUV(max) of (18)F-FDG was related to the high inflammation grade. The SUV(max )ratio of (18)F-FDG to (18)F-FAMT was higher in inflammatory tumors (P < 0.05) whereas the corresponding value in tumors with a low inflammation grade was kept low. All (18)F-FAMT parameters were correlated with Ki-67 labeling index (P < 0.01). Pathologic tumor volume predicted from MTV of (18)F-FAMT was more accurate (R = 0.90, bias = 3.4 ± 6.42 cm(3), 95% confidence interval = 0.77-6.09 cm(3)) than that of (18)F-FDG (R = 0.77, bias = 8.1 ± 11.17 cm(3), 95% confidence interval = 3.45-12.67 cm(3)).

CONCLUSION: (18)F-FDG uptake was overestimated by additional uptake related to the intratumoral inflammatory process, whereas (18)F-FAMT simply accumulated in tumors according to tumor activity as evaluated by Ki-67 labeling index in OSCC.