Positron emission tomography (PET) with [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose
(FDG) is recognized to be an accurate,
non-invasive imaging modality for the diagnosis and
staging of many malignancies, including breast cancer.
Studies performed on different cancers have shown that
hypermetabolic tumours usually have a poorer prognosis
than hypometabolic tumours1. Oshida and colleagues2
have reported that a high uptake of FDG in tumour tissue
can serve as a risk factor for recurrence in women with
breast cancer.
There are various prognostic factors related to breast
cancer. Some provide important information that can
affect management, such as axillary lymph node status,
presence of metastases, and oestrogen and progesterone
receptor status. Others such as p53 immunoreactivity are
relevant clinically, but are still not used routinely for
risk stratification. Most factors can be assessed only after
surgery1.
Preoperative prediction of patient prognosis is becoming
more important because an increasing number of women
with breast cancer have neoadjuvant chemotherapy with
the aim of downstaging their disease, and increasing the
feasibility of breast-conserving surgery. It may also be
possible to evaluate the chemosensitivity of the breast
tumour; FDG–PET seems to be promising for this
purpose3.
FDG–PET before surgery may provide important
information about tumour metabolism and its proliferation
rate which could be of prognostic significance. Calculating
FDGuptake bymeans of a simple method, the standardized
uptake value (SUV), can be done before surgery, andmight
be associated with the biological aggressiveness of breast
cancer.
The aim of this study was to determine the possible
correlation between FDG uptake and well established
prognostic markers in women with breast cancer