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Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 26, No 15 (May 20), 2008: pp. 2558-2561 © 2008 American Society of Clinical Oncology. DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2007.14.3933 Histologic Results of Para-Aortic Lymphadenectomy in Patients Treated for Stage IB2/II Cervical Cancer With Negative [18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Scans in the Para-Aortic Area
From the Departments of Surgery, Nuclear Medicine, Statistics, Pathology, and Radiation Therapy, Institut Gustave Roussy, and University Paris Sud, Villejuif, France Corresponding author: Philippe Morice, MD, Service de Chirurgie, Institut Gustave Roussy and University Paris Sud, 39 rue Camille Desmoulins, 94805 Villejuif Cedex, France; e-mail: morice{at}igr.fr
Purpose: Histologic results of complete para-aortic lymphadenectomy were studied in patients treated for stage IB2/II cervical carcinoma who had no para-aortic uptake on [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography combined with integrated computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT). Patients and Methods: Patients were treated between 2004 and 2006 for stage IB2/II cervical cancer. Magnetic resonance imaging of the abdomen and pelvis and FDG-PET/CT were initially performed. Patients with no para-aortic abnormalities were treated with external pelvic radiation therapy and concomitant chemotherapy followed by utero-vaginal brachytherapy. Para-aortic lymphadenectomy was then performed. FDG-PET/CT images were reviewed by two nuclear medicine specialists. Results: Thirty-eight patients were studied. Three patients had histologically proven para-aortic involvement (metastatic nodes with capsular rupture in the para-aortic area), leading to a negative predictive value of 92% for para-aortic nodal involvement. Conclusion: In this study, three of 38 patients with no para-aortic uptake on [18F]FDG-PET/CT imaging had histologically proven para-aortic node involvement. PET/CT imaging without histologic examination of the para-aortic area used to determine radiation therapy fields in stage IB2/II cervical cancer would overlook 8% of patients with histologic para-aortic nodal involvement.
Chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is considered as the standard treatment for bulky cervical cancer ( stage IB2 according to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics [FIGO] classification).1 A major issue when defining the modalities of CRT and, in particular, fields of external radiation therapy (pelvis alone or pelvis and para-aortic area) is whether disease has spread beyond the pelvic cavity. The para-aortic area is the first extra-pelvic site of spread in the natural history of the tumor and is involved in 12% to 25% of cases.2,3 Determining such spread is a key to improving treatment efficacy for patients and can be researched by radiologic imaging or surgical lymphadenectomies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) are, however, not sufficiently accurate for the adequate evaluation of nodal spread.4 Positron emission tomography (PET) scanning is a recent imaging modality that became a standard procedure in the management of several cancer types (lymphoma, lung cancer, and so on). Integrated PET-CT improves the diagnostic accuracy compared with PET alone.5-7 In patients with cervical cancer, several recent reports focused on the interest of PET imaging for the evaluation of disease spread at extra-cervical sites and in particular in the para-aortic area. Most of these studies, however, did not include a histologic analysis of lymph nodes, and the accuracy of PET imaging was determined according to the clinical outcome of patients. Some studies included a histologic examination as standard but were performed with a PET without an integrated CT scan.8-10 We thus decided to specifically correlate integrated [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) -PET/CT imaging and histologic findings in the evaluation of para-aortic spread in stage IB2 and II cervical carcinoma.
Data regarding women treated between January 2004 and December 2006 for stage IB2/II cervical cancer (according to the FIGO classification11) were reviewed. An initial FDG-PET/CT imaging was performed before CRT, followed by surgery that included at least a para-aortic lymphadenectomy. The FIGO stage was determined by two physicians during a clinical examination. All patients underwent at least initial abdomino-pelvic MRI or pelvic MRI plus abdominal CT and FDG-PET combined with integrated CT (FDG-PET/CT). Patients with nodes in the para-aortic area that were suggestive of abnormality on abdominal MRI or conventional CT scan (defined as having nodes > 1 cm) and with significant uptake in para-aortic nodes on FDG-PET/CT imaging were treated with CRT with extended fields, including the pelvic and para-aortic areas, and did not undergo para-aortic surgery. They were excluded from the present study. During the period of study, six patients with stage IB2/II cervical cancer were excluded because their scan (or FDG-PET/CT imaging) suggested para-aortic node involvement. Patients with no abnormalities in para-aortic nodes during abdominal MRI and FDG-PET/CT, underwent a complete para-aortic lymphadenectomy and were included in the present study. After initial FDG-PET/CT imaging, they received CRT that combined external radiation therapy at a dose of 45 Gy to the pelvic cavity and concomitant chemotherapy (cisplatin 40 mg/m2/wk) over 5 weeks. CRT was followed by low-dose-rate utero-vaginal brachytherapy to a dose of at least 15 Gy to the intermediate-risk clinical target volume. Some patients with large stage II disease and/or bulky pelvic nodes on initial imaging received a lateral pelvic boost of external radiation therapy to a total dose of 60 Gy (biologic effective dose calculation), integrating the contribution of the dose delivered by the brachytherapy. FDG-PET/CT was not repeated before surgery.
Surgical Procedure To decrease the rate of postoperative morbidity associated with complete lymphadenectomy of pelvic nodes that had been included in the radiotherapy fields, a pelvic lymphadenectomy was performed only in patients with residual lymphadenomegaly detected during the surgical procedure.
FDG-PET Imaging Technique
Image Analysis
Statistical Analysis
Thirty-eight patients were included. The median age of patients was 42 years (range, 19 to 69 years). The disease stage was as follows: IB2 (n = 17; 44%) and IIB (n = 21; 56%). There were 28 cases of squamous cell carcinoma (75%), nine cases of adenocarcinomas (23%), and one case of small-cell carcinoma (2%). No patient had para-aortic lymph nodes suggestive of abnormality during conventional imaging (MRI or CT scan) and FDG-PET/CT imaging in the study group. The median time between FDG-PET/CT imaging and the surgical procedure was 123 days (range, 31 to 196 days). Thirty patients underwent a hysterectomy (extra-fascial in 22% to 56% and radical in 8% to 21%), of whom 16 patients had residual disease in the cervix. Of the nine patients who underwent a pelvic lymphadenectomy, four patients had metastatic pelvic nodes at histologic analysis, among whom the initial FDG-PET/CT imaging had shown pelvic nodes suggestive of abnormality in two patients and a node suggestive of abnormality in the parametria in one patient (node was not suggestive of abnormality on MRI); the remaining patient had no pelvic lymph node suggestive of abnormality during initial FDG-PET/CT imaging. The 38 patients underwent a complete para-aortic lymphadenectomy (by laparoscopy in 21 patients). The median number of para-aortic nodes removed was 16 (range, five to 42 nodes). Three patients (8%) had positive para-aortic lymph nodes, and FDG-PET/CT imaging was considered falsely negative. The negative predictive value for para-aortic involvement was 92% (95% CI, 79% to 98%). Characteristics of three patients with false-negative results are listed in Tables 1 and 2.
After a median follow-up time of 444 days (range, 104 to 1,395), six patients experienced recurrence among the 35 patients without para-aortic involvement during FDG-PET/CT imaging and were confirmed histologically: five patients experienced recurrence in the pelvic cavity (with distant metastasis in three patients). All of them had bulky residual disease in the cervix at the time of completion surgery. The remaining patient with small-cell carcinoma who experienced recurrence had distant metastasis in brain and bones without local recurrence.
PET imaging is a promising procedure for the management of cervical cancer13-15 and is used for the management of recurrent disease.13 During initial management, its accuracy for disease staging is excellent,13,15 but it seems to be more limited for evaluating pelvic nodal spread in patients with early-stage disease (tumor size < 4 cm).16,17 In such patients, PET/CT imaging cannot replace lymphadenectomy for pathologic examination of lymph nodes.
In patients with more advanced-stage diseases (stage PET/CT seems to be an accurate procedure for the staging of para-aortic nodes in advanced-stage cervical cancer and may potentially replace the surgical procedure.13-15,24 However, only few studies have correlated the results of PET imaging with routine para-aortic lymphadenectomy for the histologic analysis.8-10,25 Furthermore, three studies reported results using PET alone without an integrated CT scan.8-10 Only one recent study compared the histologic analysis of pelvic and para-aortic nodes from 22 patients with results of preoperative PET/CT imaging.25 Thirteen patients had 33 metastatic lymph nodes in the pelvic or para-aortic areas. Two of the four para-aortic metastatic nodes were missed by PET/CT imaging.25 However, no patient characteristics were provided, nor did the authors mention the total number of patients with para-aortic nodal involvement. In addition, patients with stage IB1 were mixed with those with more advanced disease stages.25 In our study of patients with stage IB2/II cervical cancer, we correlated the histologic analysis of completion lymphadenectomy specimens with FDG-PET/CT findings. The evaluation of pelvic lymph nodes by PET scanning would not modify deeply the therapeutic strategy for the pelvic cavity because it was submitted to external radiation exposure during CRT. In contrast, uptake foci in the para-aortic area suggestive of abnormality raise the question of whether this area should be included in conventional radiation therapy fields. This is the policy in our institution. When there are no bulky nodes on conventional imaging but uptake foci suggestive of abnormality in the para-aortic area on FDG-PET scan, we consider that the rate of false-positive of FDG-PET/CT imaging is low in this context,15 so such patients will receive pelvic and para-aortic CRT, without any histologic confirmation. This is why we analyzed our results as per patient and not as per nodal group in the para-aortic area, because extended-field radiation therapy is given during CRT for any para-aortic uptake. This policy also explains why patients with positive FDG-PET/CT findings in the para-aortic nodes were excluded, because we treated them without any histologic confirmation of their lymph node involvement, and thus sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive values could not be evaluated. The most important finding in our study is that 8% of patients had false-negative results, which would lead to undertreatment of these patients if FDG-PET/CT were used alone, without histologic confirmation of the para-aortic lymph node status. These false-negative results were not related to a small size of lymph node metastases, because all these patients with positive nodes had macroscopic nodal involvement with capsular rupture, and two of three patients had metastatic size more than 5 mm. Different mechanisms could explain the nonvisualization of the nodal disease in present study. First, the PET/CT imaging could have been initially misdiagnosed. This potential bias is present in all series, including an interpretative examination. But in the present study, all PET/CT images were blindly and independently reviewed by two nuclear physicians to ensure the absence of uptake in para-aortic area.
Second, metastases could have occurred during the interval between PET/CT imaging and the histologic control during lymphadenectomy. This is a potential bias in this study related to the long delay between PET/CT imaging and the lymphadenectomy in the majority of patients. During the interval between both procedures, there was a potential growth in tumor volume and so a spread in para-aortic area. Therefore, it could be theoretically argued that this nodal involvement may have been absent initially but was observed because the disease had time to spread during treatment of the pelvic cavity. But this seems to be unlikely, because two of the three patients with apparent false-negative results had massive involvement (size Third, at least the last explanation could be related to the difference of uptake between pelvic and para-aortic metastatic nodes. Perhaps biologic characteristics of pelvic and para-aortic metastasis were different and could explain a discrepancy in terms of uptake. But further studies are needed to explore such a hypothesis. In conclusion, FDG-PET/CT imaging is a key examination because CRT modalities should be adapted in patients with uptake foci in the para-aortic area. However, in patients with stage IB2/II cervical cancer without uptake in this area, initial PET-CT imaging seems to overlook 8% of patients who have histologic para-aortic nodal involvement, with a risk of undertreatment. These results suggest that selected patients with stage IB2/II cervical cancer who have negative FDG-PET scan might still be appropriate candidates for a diagnostic lymphadenectomy. However, the effect of this management strategy on improving the survival of patients with stage IB2/II cervical cancer remains unclear and will require further evaluation in prospective clinical trials.
The author(s) indicated no potential conflicts of interest.
Conception and design: Christine Haie-Meder, Martin Schlumberger, Philippe Morice Provision of study materials or patients: Mathias Boughanim, Sophie Leboulleux, Yaelle Zafrani, Pierre Duvillard, Jean Lumbroso, Christine Haie-Meder, Martin Schlumberger, Philippe Morice Collection and assembly of data: Mathias Boughanim, Sophie Leboulleux, Annie Rey, Chi Tuan Pham, Yaelle Zafrani, Pierre Duvillard, Christine Haie-Meder, Martin Schlumberger, Philippe Morice Data analysis and interpretation: Mathias Boughanim, Sophie Leboulleux, Annie Rey, Chi Tuan Pham, Pierre Duvillard, Jean Lumbroso, Christine Haie-Meder, Martin Schlumberger, Philippe Morice Manuscript writing: Sophie Leboulleux, Jean Lumbroso, Christine Haie-Meder, Martin Schlumberger, Philippe Morice Final approval of manuscript: Mathias Boughanim, Sophie Leboulleux, Annie Rey, Jean Lumbroso, Christine Haie-Meder, Martin Schlumberger, Philippe Morice
We thank Lorna Saint Ange for editing.
Presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, March 9-12, 2008, Tampa, FL. Authors disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article.
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Copyright © 2008 by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Online ISSN: 1527-7755. Print ISSN: 0732-183X
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