The correlation of SUVmax with pathological characteristics of primary tumor and the value of Tumor/ Lymph node SUVmax ratio for predicting metastasis to lymph nodes in resected NSCLC patients

摘要

Background We aimed to investigate the correlation of maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) with pathological characteristics of primary tumor and to determine a Tumor/ Lymph node (T/LN) SUVmax ratio predicting metastasis to lymph nodes in NSCLC patients. Methods Eighty-one NSCLC patients who had PET/CT examination at initial staging and subsequently underwent surgical resection were retrospectively evaluated. There were 100 PET/CT positive mediastinal or hilar lymph node stations. Pathological characteristics of the tumor such as largest tumor diameter, tumor histology, differentiation, number of mitosis, degree of stromal inflammation, necrosis; etiology of PET/CT positive lymph node stations; SUVmax of primary tumor and positive lymph node stations were recorded. A T/LN SUVmax ratio was calculated for each lymph node station. Results SUVmax of the primary tumor was positively correlated with the largest tumor diameter (p?=?0.001, r?=?0.374), number of mitosis (p?