Paclitaxel-Based Chemotherapy for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Predicting the Response with 99mTc-Tetrofosmin Chest Imaging

摘要

id="p-1">The purpose of this study was to retrospectively predict the chemotherapeutic response to paclitaxel for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using 99mTc-tetrofosmin (TF) uptake and to detect the expression of 170-kDa multidrug resistance-mediated P-glycoprotein (MDR-Pgp). >Methods: Before chemotherapy with paclitaxel, 20 patients with stage IIIb or IV NSCLC were enrolled in this study to undergo early and delayed 99mTc-TF chest imaging for calculating tumor-to-normal lung ratios (T/NL) and retention indices (RI) for assessment of the MDR-Pgp in NSCLC. >Results: The early and delayed mean T/NLs were 1.59 ?± 0.25 and 1.50 ?± 0.25, respectively, for 10 patients with a good response and 1.09 ?± 0.09 and 1.03 ?± 0.05, respectively, for 10 patients with a poor response. The differences were shown to be significant (P 0.001) by independent Student t tests. However, no significant differences (P = 0.801) between good-response patients (a?’5.70% ?± 3.67%) and poor-response patients (a?’5.23% ?± 4.51%) were found in RI. In addition, other prognostic factors (age, sex, tumor size, stage, and cell type) were not significantly different between good-response patients and poor-response patients. >Conclusion: 99mTc-TF chest images are potential tools for understanding MDR-Pgp expression in NSCLC and for predicting the chemotherapeutic response to paclitaxel.