Relationship between histologic type of primary lung cancer and carbon-11-L-methionine uptake with positron emission tomography.

L-[Methyl-11C]-methionine [( 11C]methionine) has proved to be one of the useful amino acids for the diagnosis of human cancer. We examined whether there was any correlation between [11C]methionine uptake and histologic type of primary lung cancer. Sixteen patients with nine squamous cell carcinoma, five large cell carcinoma, one small cell carcinoma, and one adenocarcinoma were studied using positron emission tomography (PET). All patients had high accumulation of [11C]methionine in lung tumors. We evaluated [11C]methionine uptake into the tumor by a semiquantitative value, DUR (Differential Uptake Ratio). There was significant difference (p less than 0.01, Mann-Whitney test) of [11C]methionine uptake between large cell carcinoma (3.98 +/- 0.27) and squamous cell carcinoma (2.92 +/- 0.30). The result suggested that there was correlation between [11C]methionine accumulation and the histologic type of lung cancer. This indicates a new potential applicability of [11C]methionine PET for the study of lung cancer.