FDG PET is the standard PET scan performed.
This study was not done in her2+ breast cancer only--I will try to review the original and get back to you if its share of her2 (if identified) were either very high or very low.
FDG-PET predicts metastatic breast cancer survival
[18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) can predict the prognosis of patients receiving treatment for advanced breast cancer, study findings from Australia suggest.
Rodney Hicks (The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, East Melbourne, Victoria) and colleagues used the technique to follow-up 47 women with metastatic breast cancer undergoing up to three cycles of high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation.
The patients were examined for therapeutic response 1 month after their last treatment cycle using conventional imaging – including computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, mammography, and bone scanning, as indicated – and FDG-PET.
While CT or ultrasound indicated a complete response to treatment in 37% of patients and a partial response in 35%, FDG-PET suggested a complete metabolic response to chemotherapy in 72% of the group.
Importantly, FDG-PET was the strongest independent predictor of survival in the patients, with patients with a negative FDG-PET result achieving significantly longer median survival than those with positive findings (24 vs 10 months).
Furthermore, in multivariate analysis, the relative risk of death was greatest in patients with a positive post-treatment FDG-PET result, prior anthracycline therapy, and evidence of visceral metastasis, with values of 5.3, 3.3, and 2.4, respectively.
"A single FDG-PET study performed after completion of high-dose chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer can powerfully stratify for survival," Hicks et al summarize in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
"This may have implications for how we should assess outcome after conventional-dose therapy for metastatic breast cancer and warrants additional study," they believe.
J Clin Oncol 2006; 24: 3026–3031
http://www.jco.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/19/3026
© 2006 CMG
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