Three-D PET tracks response to lung cancer therapy

Patients with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining caused by exposure to asbestos, may someday benefit from a new 3D PET measure that helps accurately and quickly measure response to chemotherapy, according to Australian researchers.

Investigators at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital's PET Center in Western Australia and other area centers developed software to assess total glycolytic volume (TGV), a 3D measure that reflects tumor volume and metabolic activity on FDG-PET scans. They compared TGV and maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) for PET and CT-based measures on 23 patients with mesothelioma set to undergo cisplatin and gemcitabine treatment.

Results showed that TGV can measure tumor response after just one round of chemotherapy. TGV also proved more accurate predicting survival than did both SUVmax and CT (JNM 2007:48:1449-1458).