Abstract P2-08-28: Relationship between FDG uptake and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio in patients with breast invasive ductal cancer

Abstract

Abstract Background: 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) is used to evaluate the glucose metabolic rates of cancers. Several studies have reported that high FDG uptake is predictive of poor prognosis and aggressive features in patients with breast cancer. FDG uptake is influenced by many factors, including inflammation. In this study, we investigated the relationship between FDG uptake and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), which is an indicator of systemic inflammation. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively investigated the cases of 143 consecutive invasive ductal carcinoma patients who had undergone surgery and FDG-PET preoperatively.PET was evaluated using standardized uptake value max (SUVmax). The median SUVmax was 2.5 (range 0-10.5). Thus, we divided the cases into two groups based on the value of SUVmax; low (<2.5) and high (≥2.5). The relationships between SUVmax and clinicopathological features, including NLR, were investigated. Results: Among the143 patients, 73 (51.0%) had high SUVmax in the primary tumor. The analysis revealed that large tumor size (p<0.001), high nuclear grade (p<0.001), the presence of lymphovascular invasion (p<0.001), CRP (p=0.046) and high NLR (p<0.001) were significantly associated with high SUVmax in the primary tumor. There were associations between SUVmax and NLR (r=0.323, p<0.001). Among the 70 cases with low SUVmax, there was no recurrent disease, while 6 cases among the 73 cases with high SUVmax had disease recurrence. It is interesting to note that the group with high SUVmax and low NLR had no recurrent disease. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to describe the relationship between FDG uptake and NLR in breast cancer. The present study demonstrated that the finding of preoperative high FDG uptake in breast cancer may be reflective of poor prognosis and that high NLR may be predictive of aggressive features among patients with breast cancer. On the other hand, among breast cancer patients with high SUVmax in the primary tumor, it will be useful to identify the subset of patients with low NLR in order to improve prognostic accuracy. Citation Format: Fujii T, Yanai K, Tokuda S, Nakazawa Y, Kurozumi S, Obayashi S, Yajima R, Hirakata T. Relationship between FDG uptake and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio in patients with breast invasive ductal cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-08-28.