Prognostic Value of Metabolic Tumor Burden from 18F-FDG PET in Surgical Patients with Non-small-cell Lung Cancer

Baseline whole-body metabolic tumor burden as measured with MTVWB and TLGWB on FDG PET is a prognostic measure independent of clinical stage and other prognostic factors including chemoradiation therapy and surgical procedure with low interobserver variability and may be used to further risk stratify surgical patients with NSCLC. This study also suggests that MTV and TLG are better prognostic measures than SUVmax and SUVmean. These results will need to be validated in larger cohorts in a prospective study.