Our aim was to evaluate correlation between clinicopathological features (clinical
T and clinical N stages; histological type; nuclear grade; hormone-receptor and HER2
status, proliferation activity and tumor subtypes) of breast cancer and kinetic parameters
measured by staging dynamic FDG-PET/CT examinations. Following ethical approval and
patients' informed consent we included 34 patients with 35 primary breast cancers
in our prospective study. We performed dynamic PET imaging, and assessed plasma activity
noninvasively. To delineate primary tumors we applied a frame-by-frame semi-automatic
software-based correction of motion artefacts. FDG two-compartment kinetic modelling
was applied to assess K1, k2, k3 rate coefficients and to calculate Ki (tracer flux
constant) and MRFDG (FDG metabolic rate). We found that k3, Ki and MRFDG were significantly
higher in higher grade (p = 0.0246, 0.0089 and 0.0076, respectively), progesterone-receptor
negative (p = 0.0344, 0.0217 and 0.0132) and highly-proliferating (p = 0.0414, 0.0193
and 0.0271) tumors as well as in triple-negative and hormone-receptor negative/HER2-positive
subtypes (p = 0.0310, 0.0280 and 0.0186). Ki and MRFDG were significantly higher in
estrogen-receptor negative tumors (p = 0.0300 and 0.0247, respectively). Ki was significantly
higher in node-positive than in node-negative disease (p = 0.0315). None of the assessed
FDG-kinetic parameters showed significant correlation with stromal TIL. In conclusion,
we confirmed a significant relationship between kinetic parameters measured by dynamic
PET and the routinely assessed clinicopathological factors of breast cancer: high-grade,
hormone-receptor negative tumors with high proliferation rate are characterized by
higher cellular FDG-uptake and FDG-phosphorylation rate. Furthermore, we found that
kinetic parameters based on the dynamic examinations are probably not influenced by
stromal TIL infiltration.
