Abstract
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Objectives Aim of our study is to evaluate a possible influence of chemotherapy on global and regional myocardial FDG uptake in non-diabetic cancer subjects with no heart disease.
Methods Myocardial uptake was analyzed on 43 patients, subdivided into two groups: group A (control, 22 subjects, 12 M, 10 F, age 54.6±11.9) who underwent two PET/CT for follow-up, with no therapy in between; group B (chemotherapy, 21 subjects, 8 M, 13 F, age 47.4±19.3) who underwent PET/CT before and after 14.5±8.1 days from treatment. One short axis slice including the global ventricular volume was considered. Maximum SUV by drawing ROIs on septal (S), anterior (A), lateral (L) and inferior (I) walls were calculated. A further ROI was drawn on the liver in order to normalise myocardial SUV to the hepatic activity.
Results No variation in liver activity was noticed between PETs in both groups. A strong time within-subject effect (SUV difference between PET scans) in group B (p<0.001) for all the walls and a soft between-subject effect (p<0.05) when considering L and I walls were observed. No significant variation was noticed for group A (see table).
Conclusions Our preliminary data show a significant increase of FDG global ventricular uptake after chemotherapy, suggesting a direct influence by chemotherapeutic agents on myocardial glucose metabolism. Next step is to determine the duration of this influence and to correlate such a variation with clinical and pharmacological data, as possible predictive factor of cardiotoxicity