Evaluating Positron Emission Tomography-Based Functional Imaging Changes in the Heart After Chemo-Radiation for Patients With Lung Cancer

Purpose: Studies have noted a link between radiation dose to the heart and overall survival (OS) for patients with lung cancer treated with chemoradiation. The purpose of this study was to characterize pre- to posttreatment cardiac metabolic changes using fluorodeoxyglucose/positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) images and to evaluate whether changes in cardiac metabolism predict for OS.

Methods And Materials: Thirty-nine patients enrolled in a functional avoidance prospective study who had undergone pre- and postchemoradiation FDG-PET imaging were evaluated. For each patient, the pretreatment and posttreatment PET/CTs were rigidly registered to the planning CT, dose, and structure set. PET-based metabolic dose-response was assessed by comparing pretreatment to posttreatment mean standardized uptake values (SUVmean) in the heart as a function of dose-bin. OS analysis was performed by comparing SUVmean changes for patients who were alive or had died at last follow-up and by using a multivariate model to assess whether pre- to posttreatment SUVmean changes were a predictor of OS.

Results: The dose-response curve revealed increasing changes in SUV as a function of cardiac dose with an average SUVmean increase of 1.7% per 10 Gy. Patients were followed for a median of 437 days (range, 201-1131 days). SUVmean change was significantly predictive of OS on multivariate analysis with a hazard ratio of 0.541 (95% confidence intervals, 0.312-0.937). Patients alive at follow-up had an average increase of 17.2% in cardiac SUVmean while patients that died had an average decrease in SUVmean decrease of 13.5% (P = .048).

Conclusions: Our data demonstrated that posttreatment SUV changes in the heart were significant indicators of dose-response and predictors of OS. The present work is hypothesis generating and must be validated in an independent cohort. If validated, our data show the potential for cardiac metabolic changes to be an early predictor for clinical outcomes.