¹⁸ F-Fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT for Early Prediction of Outcomes in Patients with Advanced Lung Adenocarcinomas and EGFR Mutations Treated with First-Line EGFR-TKIs

This study aims to investigate the role of¹⁸ F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission to-mography/computed tomography (¹⁸ F-FDG PET/CT) in early prediction of response and survival following epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR)–tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy in patients with advanced lung adenocarcinomas and EGFR mutations. Thirty patients with stage IIIB/IV lung adenocarcinomas and EGFR mutations receiving first-line EGFR-TKIs were prospectively evaluated between November 2012 and May 2015. EGFR mutations were quantified by delta cycle threshold (dCt).¹⁸ F-FDG PET/CT was performed before and 2 weeks after treatment initiation. PET response was assessed based on PET Response Criteria in Solid Tumors (PERCIST). Baseline and percent-age changes in the summed standardized uptake value, metabolic tumor volume (bsumMTV and ∆sumMTV, respectively), and total lesion glycolysis of ≤5 target lesions/patient were calculated. The association between parameters (clinical and PET) and non-progression disease after 3 months of treatment in CT based on the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors Version 1.1 (nPD_3mo), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were tested. The median follow-up time was 19.6 months. The median PFS and OS were 12.0 and 25.3 months, respectively. The PERCIST criteria was an independent predictor of nPD_3mo (p = 0.009), dCt (p = 0.014) and bsumMTV (p = 0.014) were independent predictors of PFS, and dCt (p = 0.014) and ∆sumMTV (p = 0.005) were independent predictors of OS.¹⁸ F-FDG PET/CT achieved early prediction of outcomes in patients with advanced lung adenocarcinomas and EGFR mutations receiving EGFR-TKIs.