BACKGROUND:

 

Findings on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) are surrogate markers of malignancy in lung adenocarcinoma. Breathing during PET/CT can substantially reduce the maximum standardized uptake value (maxSUV) of lung tumors when they are located at the lower zone (LZ).

 

OBJECTIVES:

 

We assessed whether lung cancer location influences the malignancy predicted by maxSUV.

 

METHODS:

 

608 patients with clinical stage IA lung adenocarcinoma had been preoperatively examined by PET/CT and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). We evaluated the clinicopathological characteristics of these patients and the accuracy of precognition obtained by maxSUV between the upper zone (UZ, n = 395) and the LZ (n = 213). maxSUV was also analyzed for matched pairs between the two groups.

 

(후략)