OBJECTIVE

The role of baseline and post-treatment standardized uptake value (SUV) values in predicting pathological response in patients with breast cancer after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Thirty patients with invasive ductal breast cancer were included in this retrospective study. F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computerized tomography (PET/CT) examinations were performed before and after NAC. Pretreatment SUV (SUV I), post-treatment SUV (SUV II) and ΔSUV values of primary breast cancer were obtained. Breast tumor pathology preparations were examined for the evaluation of tumor response according to the Miller and Payne classification. Patients were grouped as responding to treatment (pCR) and unresponsive to treatment (nonpCR). In all analyses, p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS

The mean age of the 30 patients included in the study was 51.2±11.98 years. In the study-defined grouping, 13 patients (43.3%) were nonresponders and 17 patients (56.7%) were responders. ΔSUV was significantly greater in the responders group compared to the nonresponders group, while SUV II was lower ( = 0.001 and = 0.004, respectively). There was no significant difference between the responders and nonresponders in terms of age, tumor diameter, and SUV I values. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed ΔSUV to be the only independent predictive factor for pCR.

CONCLUSION

F-18 FDG PET/CT was an effective method in evaluating the treatment response after NAC in breast cancer, and ΔSUV and post-treatment SUV can be used to predict the response of the primary tumor to treatment.