The measurement of SUVmax of the primary tumor is predictive of prognosis for patients with endometrial cancer.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate if preoperative measurements of the maximum standardized uptake valve (SUVmax) on positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and tumor marker CA125 are correlated with clinical characteristics and prognosis in patients with endometrial cancer. METHODS The distribution of cases that scored positive for each of the biological parameters examined and the correlations with the SUVmax of the primary tumor and the serum tumor marker CA125 were examined for 106 patients with preoperative assessment of primary endometrial cancer. RESULTS There were significant correlations between the SUVmax of the primary tumor and the FIGO stage (P=0.030), histology (P=0.025), depth of myometrial invasion (P=0.031) and tumor maximum size (P<0.001). The serum CA125 level was significantly associated with the FIGO stage (P=0.050). The disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) rates of patients exhibiting a high SUVmax of the primary tumor were significantly lower than those of patients exhibiting a low SUVmax of the primary tumor (P=0.049, and P=0.039, respectively). Furthermore, the DFS and OS rates of patients exhibiting a high SUVmax of the primary tumor were significantly lower than those of patients exhibiting a low SUVmax of the primary tumor at advanced stages (stages III-IV) (P=0.032 and P=0.023, respectively). In particular, the SUVmax of the primary tumor was an independent prognostic factor for OS by a multivariate analysis (P=0.025). CONCLUSIONS The present findings indicate that for patients with endometrial cancer, a high preoperative SUVmax of the primary tumor is an important predictive factor for identifying endometrial cancer patients with a poor prognosis.