Impact of the introduction of integrated PET-CT into the preoperative staging pathway of patients with potentially operable oesophageal carcinoma

AIM: To retrospectively evaluate the role of integrated positron emission tomography computed tomography (PET-CT) in oesophageal carcinoma staging, in predicting prognosis and its influence on surgical management.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-five consecutive patients with potentially operable, biopsy-proven oesophageal malignancy who undergoing PET-CT from September 2004 to April 2007 were included in this study. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to compare the accuracy of N staging with PET-CT and CT/endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) using postoperative loco-regional nodal histology as the reference standard. The prognostic value of primary tumour maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) was derived using logistic regression.

RESULTS: Seventeen men and eight women with a mean age of 62 years were studied. All tumours showed abnormal 2-[(18)F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) uptake. Fifteen patients underwent surgical resection. There was high concordance between N staging at CT/EUS (14/15) and final histology. PET-CT N staging was discordant with final nodal histology in over half of the patients (8/15). PET-CT detected occult metastases in three patients (12%) that were not identified on CT and new synchronous tumours in two patients (8%). Patient management was altered in 10 patients (40%) as a direct result of PET-CT. No statistically significant association was observed between SUVmax and clinical outcome (p=0.65).

CONCLUSION: Integrated PET-CT has a significant incremental value over conventional staging investigations mainly in the detection of distant metastases and synchronous tumours and frequently impacts on patient management.