BACKGROUND Compared to other esophageal cancers, clinical stage IA esophageal cancer generally has a good prognosis, although a subgroup of patients has a poor prognosis. Unfortunately, clinical diagnoses of invasion depth or lymph node metastasis are not always accurate, which make it difficult to identify patients with a high risk of postoperative recurrence using the tumor-node-metastasis staging system. Fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography may help guide the identification of malignant tumors and the evaluation of their malignant grade based on glucose metabolism. We aimed to evaluate the association between pre-operative fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography findings and the postoperative prognosis of patients with clinical stage IA esophageal cancer. METHODS This single-center retrospective study evaluated pre-esophagectomy fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography findings from 38 patients with clinical stage IA esophageal cancer. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to evaluate the prognostic significance of the primary tumor having low and high SUVmax values (cut-off: 3.56). RESULTS Overall survival (log-rank p = 0.034) and progression-free survival (log-rank p = 0.008) were significantly different between the groups with low SUVmax values (n = 18) and high SUVmax values (n = 20). Furthermore, the primary tumor's SUVmax value was related to pathological vascular invasion (p = 0.045) and distant metastasis (p = 0.042). CONCLUSION The SUVmax of the primary tumor is a predictor of postoperative survival for clinical stage IA esophageal cancer. Thus, using fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography to evaluate the primary tumor's glucose metabolism may reflect the tumor's grade and potentially compensate for inaccuracies in tumor-node-metastasis staging.

中文翻译：

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IA期食管癌原发性肿瘤的SUVmax与术后生存率的关联：一项单中心回顾性研究。

背景技术与其他食道癌相比，IA期食管癌一般预后良好，尽管亚组患者预后较差。不幸的是，浸润深度或淋巴结转移的临床诊断并不总是准确的，这使得难以使用肿瘤-淋巴结转移分期系统来确定术后复发风险高的患者。氟脱氧葡萄糖-正电子发射断层扫描可能有助于指导恶性肿瘤的鉴定和基于葡萄糖代谢的恶性程度的评估。我们旨在评估术前IA期食管癌患者的氟脱氧葡萄糖-正电子发射断层扫描结果与术后预后之间的关联。方法这项单中心回顾性研究评估了38例IA期食管癌患者的食管切除术前氟脱氧葡萄糖-正电子发射断层扫描的发现。进行受试者工作特征曲线分析以评估具有低和高SUVmax值（截止值：3.56）的原发肿瘤的预后意义。结果SUVmax值低（n = 18）和SUVmax值高（n = 20）的组之间的总生存期（log-rank p = 0.034）和无进展生存期（log-rank p = 0.008）显着不同。此外，原发肿瘤的SUVmax值与病理性血管浸润（p = 0.045）和远处转移（p = 0.042）有关。结论原发性肿瘤的SUVmax是IA期食管癌术后生存的预测指标。从而，