FDG-PET lymph node staging and survival of patients with FIGO stage IIIb cervical carcinoma

To evaluate the outcome of patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) clinical Stage IIIb cervical carcinoma as a function of site of initial regional lymph node metastasis as detected by 2[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET).

Forty-seven patients with FIGO Stage IIIb cervical cancer were evaluated before therapy with whole-body FDG-PET. Most patients were treated with external beam irradiation, intracavitary brachytherapy, and weekly cisplatin for six cycles. Overall and cause-specific survival rates were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method.

The pretreatment whole-body FDG-PET demonstrated that all patients had FDG uptake in the cervix. Of 47 patients, 13 (28%) had no evidence of lymph node metastasis, 20 (43%) had metastasis to pelvic lymph nodes only, 7 (15%) had pelvic and para-aortic lymph node metastases, and 7 (15%) had metastases to pelvic, para-aortic, and supraclavicular lymph nodes. The 3-year estimate of cause-specific survival was 73% for those with no lymph node metastasis, 58% for those with only pelvic lymph node metastasis, 29% for those with pelvic and para-aortic lymph node metastases, and 0% for those with pelvic, para-aortic, and supraclavicular lymph node metastasis (p = 0.0005).

The cause-specific survival for patients with FIGO Stage IIIb carcinoma is highly dependent on the extent of lymph node metastasis as demonstrated by whole-body FDG-PET.