Usefulness of 18F-α-Methyltyrosine PET for Therapeutic Monitoring of Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer

• Published in: Anticancer research Vol. 36; no. 12; pp. 6481 - 6490
• Main Authors: Kaira, Kyoichi, Higuchi, Tetsuya, Sunaga, Noriaki, Arisaka, Yukiko, Hisada, Takeshi, Tominaga, Hideyuki, Oriuchi, Noboru, Asao, Takayuki, Tsushima, Yoshihito, Yamada, Masanobu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Greece 01.12.2016
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antineoplastic Agents - therapeutic use; Female; Fluorine Radioisotopes - administration & dosage; Humans; Lung Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging; Lung Neoplasms - drug therapy; Male; Methyltyrosines - administration & dosage; Middle Aged; Positron-Emission Tomography - methods; lung cancer; metabolic response; 18F-FAMT; therapeutic monitoring; PET
• ISSN: 0250-7005; 1791-7530
• DOI: 10.21873/anticanres.11247

L-[3- F]-α-methyl tyrosine ( F-FAMT) positron emission tomography (PET) has a high specificity for detecting malignant lesions. However, the usefulness of therapeutic monitoring of F-FAMT PET against advanced human neoplasms remains unclear. Here, we evaluated F-FAMT PET clinical significance regarding therapy response and outcome after systemic chemotherapy in patients with advanced lung cancer, compared to F-FDG PET. All patients with untreated advanced lung cancer received F-FAMT PET and F-FDG PET before and 4 weeks after one cycle of chemotherapy. Metabolic response (MR) was defined according to the PERCIST guideline. Ninety-five patients were eligible for analysis on both PET scans. The histological type included 87 non-small cell lung cancers and 8 small-cell lung cancers. Post-treatment maximal standardized uptake values (SUV ) and MR on F-FAMT PET were correlated with tumor response. In all patients, post-treatment SUV of F-FDG and F-FAMT PET and MR of F-FAMT PET were statistically significant prognostic markers for predicting poor outcome by univariate analysis. Multivariate analysis confirmed that MR on F-FAMT PET was a significant independent prognostic factor. MR on F-FAMT PET may be a potential parameter to predict the prognosis after first-line chemotherapy in patients with advanced lung cancer.