Correlation of FDG-PET imaging with Glut-1 and Glut-3 expression in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Purpose: To correlate FDG activity on PET with the expression of glucose transporter proteins Glut-1 and Glut-3 in patients with early stag non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Over a 5 year period, all patients with a PET scan and clinical stage I NSCLC underwent an immunohistochemical analysis of their tumor for Glut-1 and Glut-3 expression. The amount of FDG uptake in the primary lesion was measured by a standardized uptake ratio (SUR) and correlated with immunohistochemical results. Results: Seventy-three patients with a mean age of 66 years had clinical stage I disease. The final pathologic stage showed 64 patients with stage IA/B disease, eight with stage IIA disease, and one patient with pathologic stage IIIA (T1N2) disease. Glut-1 transporter expression was significantly higher than Glut-3 (P < 0.0001), and although there was some association between the SUR and Glut-1 (P = 0.085) and SUR and Glut-3 (P = 0.074) expression, this did not reach statistical significance. Conclusions: Glut-1 and Glut-3 transporter expression did not demonstrate a statistically significant correlation with FDG uptake in potentially resectable lung cancer. It appears that these transporters alone do not affect the variation in FDG activity in early stage NSCLC. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.