Frequent EGFR Mutations and Better Prognosis in Positron Emission Tomography-Negative, Solid-Type Lung Cancer

Recent Advances in Perioperative Immunotherapies in Lung Cancer

Several clinical trials have been revolutionizing the perioperative treatment of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Many of these clinical trials involve cancer immunotherapies with antibody drugs that block the inhibitory immune checkpoints programmed death 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1. While these new treatments are expected to improve the treatment outcome of NSCLC patients after pulmonary resection, several major clinical questions remain, including the appropriate timing of immunotherapy (neoadjuvant, adjuvant, or both) and the identification of patients who should be treated with neoadjuvant and/or adjuvant immunotherapies, because some early-stage NSCLC patients are cured by surgical resection alone. In addition, immunotherapy may induce immune-related adverse events that will require permanent treatment in some patients. Based on this fact as well, it is desirable to select appropriate patients for neoadjuvant/adjuvant immunotherapies. So far, data from several important trials have been published, with findings demonstrating the efficacy of adjuvant atezolizumab (IMpower010 trial), neoadjuvant nivolumab plus platinum-doublet chemotherapy (CheckMate816 trial), and several perioperative (neoadjuvant plus adjuvant) immunotherapies (AEGEAN, KEYNOTE-671, NADIM II, and Neotorch trials). In addition to these key trials, numerous clinical trials have reported a wealth of data, although most of the above clinical questions have not been completely answered yet. Because there are so many ongoing clinical trials in this field, a comprehensive understanding of the results and/or contents of these trials is necessary to explore answers to the clinical questions above as well as to plan a new clinical trial. In this review, we comprehensively summarize the recent data obtained from clinical trials addressing such questions.

Prognostic role of preoperative fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography with an image-based harmonization technique: A multicenter retrospective study

Objectives

Despite the prognostic impacts of preoperative fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography examination, fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography-based prognosis prediction has not been used clinically because of the disparity in data between institutions. By applying an image-based harmonized approach, we evaluated the prognostic roles of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography parameters in clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer.

Methods

We retrospectively examined 495 patients with clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer who underwent fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography examinations before pulmonary resection between 2013 and 2014 at 4 institutions. Three different harmonization techniques were applied, and an image-based harmonization, which showed the best-fit results, was used in the further analyses to evaluate the prognostic roles of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography parameters.

Results

Cutoff values of image-based harmonized fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography parameters, maximum standardized uptake, metabolic tumor volume, and total lesion glycolysis were determined using receiver operating characteristic curves that distinguish pathologic high invasiveness of tumors. Among these parameters, only the maximum standardized uptake was an independent prognostic factor in recurrence-free and overall survivals in univariate and multivariate analyses. High image-based maximum standardized uptake value was associated with squamous histology or lung adenocarcinomas with higher pathologic grades. In subgroup analyses defined by ground-glass opacity status and histology or by clinical stages, the prognostic impact of image-based maximum standardized uptake value was always the highest compared with other fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography parameters.

Conclusions

The image-based fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography harmonization was the best fit, and the image-based maximum standardized uptake was the most important prognostic marker in all patients and in subgroups defined by ground-glass opacity status and histology in surgically resected clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancers.

Distinct Prognostic Impact of PET Findings Based on Radiological Appearance in Clinical Stage IA Lung Adenocarcinoma

INTRODUCTION

Although solid appearance on computed tomography and positive findings on positron emission tomography (PET) have been both associated with poor outcome in lung adenocarcinoma, the extent to which these findings overlap is unknown. This study aimed to determine the differences in prognostic significance of PET findings in part-solid nodules (PSNs) and solid nodules.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We retrospectively investigated 417 patients with clinical stage IA adenocarcinoma who underwent curative resection between 2010 and 2017. We compared disease-free survival (DFS), cumulative incidence of disease recurrence (CIR) and clinicopathological characters between PET-positive and negative groups among PSNs and solid nodules, respectively. We used 2.5 as a cut-off value of maximum standardized uptake value (SUV max).

RESULTS

In PSNs (n = 235), PET-positive group (n = 59) showed more aggressive features in several clinicopathological variables, poorer DFS (P < .001) and higher CIR (P < .001) than PET-negative group (n = 176). In contrast, in solid nodules (n = 182), DFS (P = .521) and CIR (P = .311) were not significantly different between PET-positive (n = 128) and negative groups (n = 54). SUV max was proved to be the independent prognostic factor of DFS by multivariate analysis (HR, 1.155; 95% CI, 1.036-1.287) only in PSNs.

CONCLUSION

These findings showed distinct impact on prognosis of PET findings between PSNs and solid nodules. PET-positive finding was more important prognostic factor in PSNs than in solid nodules among clinical stage IA lung adenocarcinoma.