Bright tumors, dim prospects(hat patients with high SUV tumors may ne...),Health
hat patients with high SUV tumors may need more aggressive treatments, further clinical studies will be necessary to determine the best therapy in such cases.
In the current study, 287 patients with cervical cancer were treated with surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy following standard treatment protocols. At the time of diagnosis, the SUV of their primary tumor was obtained. Their cancers were also staged under standard guidelines, which rely largely on tumor size and involvement with surrounding tissues. The patients' cancers ranged from early (stage 1A2) to highly advanced (stage 4B).
The researchers showed that patients who had a high tumor SUV were more likely to have aggressive disease: They were likely to have cancerous cells in their lymph nodes, persistent disease after initial treatment, recurrence of disease in the pelvis and lower survival rates. They also found that tumor SUV did not depend on the tumor stage or volume large tumors could have a relatively low SUV, and small tumors could have a high SUV.
The findings suggest that SUV is a more sensitive indicator of tumor aggressiveness than standard staging protocols. The study also demonstrated that SUV was better at predicting overall survival than the type of tumor or lymph node involvement, factors suspected to affect prognosis.
The patients were found to fall into three distinct risk groups. Those with the lowest SUV had a survival rate of 95 percent at five years, those in the middle SUV range had a 70 percent five-year survival rate, and those in the highest SUV range had a 44 percent five-year survival rate.
Because high SUV indicates that tumors take up glucose rapidly, the measurement may point to an important biological difference in these more aggressive cancers. "We're interested in finding out what causes that difference," Kidd says. "That could eventually lead to new methods for treating patients whose tumors have a high SUV."
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| Contact: Gwen Ericson ericsong@wustl.edu 314-286-0141 Washington University in St. Louis Source:Eurekalert |
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