Imaging of hypoxia with 18F-FAZA PET in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with definitive chemoradiotherapy

Abstract

Introduction For many cancers, tumour hypoxia is an adverse prognostic factor, and increases chemoradiation resistance; its importance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is unproven. This study evaluated tumoural hypoxia using fluoroazomycin arabinoside (18F-FAZA) positron emission tomography (PET) scans among patients with locoregionally advanced NSCLC treated with definitive chemoradiation. Methods Patients with stage IIIA-IIIB NSCLC underwent 18F-FAZA PET scans and 18F-2-deoxyglucose (FDG)-PET scans within 4 weeks of commencing and 8 weeks following conventionally-fractionated concurrent platinum-based chemoradiation (60 Gy). Intra-lesional hypoxic volumes of the primary and nodal mass..