Detection of hematogenous bone metastasis in cervical cancer

BACKGROUND:

In this large‐scale, retrospective study, the authors evaluated the diagnostic performances of computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and ¹⁸F‐fluorodeoxyglucose‐positron emission tomography (¹⁸F‐FDG–PET) in detecting hematogenous bone metastasis in patients with cervical cancer. The associated risk factors also were analyzed.

METHODS:

Patients with invasive cervical cancer who had both ¹⁸F‐FDG–PET studies and CT or MR imaging studies were selected. Patients who had either International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage III/IV disease or positive lymph node metastasis at the time of primary staging and patients who had suspected recurrent disease were included in the analyses. The diagnostic performances of PET was compared with the performance of CT and MR imaging by using the area under the receiver‐operating‐characteristic curve (AUC). Both univariate and multivariate analyses were applied to assess the risk factors for hematogenous bone metastasis at primary staging.

RESULTS:

PET was more sensitive than CT (P = .004) and was more specific than MR imaging (P = .04). The diagnostic performance of PET was significantly superior to the performance CT (AUC, 0.964 vs 0.662; P < .001) and MR (AUC, 0.966 vs 0.833; P = .033). Both FIGO stage and the extent of lymph node metastases were associated with hematogenous bone metastasis in univariate analysis. However, the extent of lymph node metastases was the only significant risk factor in multivariate analysis (P = .025).

CONCLUSIONS:

The current study demonstrated the superiority of ¹⁸F‐FDG–PET over CT and MR imaging for detecting hematogenous bone metastasis in patients with advanced cervical cancer. Hematogenous bone metastasis in cervical cancer was associated with the extent of lymph node metastases rather than with FIGO stage. Cancer 2009. © 2009 American Cancer Society.