Predictive Value of Preoperative Volume-Based 18F-2-Fluoro-2-Deoxy-d-Glucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Parameters in Patients with Resectable Lung Adenocarcinoma

Metabolic bulk volume predicts survival in a homogeneous cohort of stage II/III diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients undergoing R-CHOP treatment

Purpose

Accurate risk stratification can improve lymphoma management, but current volumetric ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) indicators require time-consuming segmentation of all lesions in the body. Herein, we investigated the prognostic values of readily obtainable metabolic bulk volume (MBV) and bulky lesion glycolysis (BLG) that measure the single largest lesion.

Methods

The study subjects were a homogeneous cohort of 242 newly diagnosed stage II or III diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients who underwent first-line R-CHOP treatment. Baseline PET/CT was retrospectively analyzed for maximum transverse diameter (MTD), total metabolic tumor volume (TMTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG), MBV, and BLG. Volumes were drawn using 30% SUVmax as threshold. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and the Cox proportional hazards model assessed the ability to predict overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS).

Results

During a median follow-up period of 5.4 years (maximum of 12.7 years), events occurred in 85 patients, including progression, relapse, and death (65 deaths occurred at a median of 17.6 months). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis identified an optimal TMTV of 112 cm³, MBV of 88 cm³, TLG of 950, and BLG of 750 for discerning events. Patients with high MBV were more likely to have stage III disease; worse ECOG performance; higher IPI risk score; increased LDH; and high SUVmax, MTD, TMTV, TLG, and BLG. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that high TMTV (p = 0.005 and < 0.001), MBV (both p < 0.001), TLG (p < 0.001 and 0.008), and BLG (p = 0.018 and 0.049) were associated with significantly worse OS and PFS. On Cox multivariate analysis, older age (> 60 years; HR, 2.74; 95% CI, 1.58-4.75; p < 0.001) and high MBV (HR, 2.74; 95% CI, 1.05-6.54; p = 0.023) were independent predictors of worse OS. Older age (hazard ratio [HR], 2.90; 95% CI, 1.74-4.82; p < 0.001) and high MBV (HR, 2.36; 95% CI, 1.15-6.54; p = 0.032) were also independent predictors of worse PFS. Furthermore, among subjects ≤60 years, high MBV remained the only significant independent predictor of worse OS (HR, 4.269; 95% CI, 1.03-17.76; p = 0.046) and PFS (HR, 6.047; 95% CI, 1.73-21.11; p = 0.005). Among subjects with stage III disease, only greater age (HR, 2.540; 95% CI, 1.22-5.30; p = 0.013) and high MBV (HR, 6.476; 95% CI, 1.20-31.9; p = 0.030) were significantly associated with worse OS, while greater age was the only independent predictor of worse PFS (HR, 6.145; 95% CI, 1.10-4.17; p = 0.024).

Conclusions

MBV easily obtained from the single largest lesion may provide a clinically useful FDG volumetric prognostic indicator in stage II/III DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP.

Acquired deficiency of peroxisomal dicarboxylic acid catabolism is a metabolic vulnerability in hepatoblastoma

Metabolic reprogramming provides transformed cells with proliferative and/or survival advantages. Capitalizing on this therapeutically, however, has been only moderately successful because of the relatively small magnitude of these differences and because cancers may further adapt their metabolism to evade metabolic pathway inhibition. Mice lacking the peroxisomal bifunctional enzyme enoyl-CoA hydratase/3-hydroxyacyl CoA dehydrogenase (Ehhadh) and supplemented with the 12-carbon fatty acid lauric acid (C12) accumulate the toxic metabolite dodecanedioic acid (DDDA), which causes acute hepatocyte necrosis and liver failure. We noted that, in a murine model of pediatric hepatoblastoma (HB) and in primary human HBs, downregulation of Ehhadh occurs in association with the suppression of mitochondrial β- and endosomal/peroxisomal ω-fatty acid oxidation pathways. This suggested that HBs might be more susceptible than normal liver tissue to C12 dietary intervention. Indeed, HB-bearing mice provided with C12- and/or DDDA-supplemented diets survived significantly longer than those on standard diets. In addition, larger tumors developed massive necrosis following short-term DDDA administration. In some HBs, the eventual development of DDDA resistance was associated with 129 transcript differences, ∼90% of which were downregulated, and approximately two-thirds of which correlated with survival in numerous human cancers. These transcripts often encoded extracellular matrix components, suggesting that DDDA resistance arises from reduced Ehhadh uptake. Lower Ehhadh expression was also noted in murine hepatocellular carcinomas and in subsets of certain human cancers, supporting the likely generality of these results. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of C12 or DDDA dietary supplementation that is nontoxic, inexpensive, and likely compatible with more standard chemotherapies.