Prognostic Value of Somatostatin Receptor-Derived Volumetric Parameters from a Hybrid Standardized Uptake Value Thresholding Method in Patients with 68Ga-DOTATATE-Avid Stage IV Neuroendocrine Neoplasms: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Introduction: The ability of PET/CT imaging to delineate neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) and predict prognosis in affected patients is often compromised by substantial uptake heterogeneity. We hereby proposed a hybrid standardized uptake value (SUV) thresholding algorithm to extract volumetric parameters from somatostatin receptor (SSTR) PET/CT imaging and investigate their prognostic performance in patients with 68Ga-DOTATATE-avid stage IV NENs. Methods: For 38 retrospectively enrolled patients, we used either fixed SUV thresholding of normal liver parenchyma (method A), 41% of the SUVmax for each lesion (method B), or a hybrid method (method A for liver metastases; fixed SUV threshold of normal bone for bone metastases; method B for primary tumors and other metastases) to quantify the whole-body SSTR-expressing tumor volume (SRETVwb) and total lesion SSTR expression (TLSREwb). Patient survival was also recorded and analyzed. Results: PET/CT images revealed heterogeneous uptake of 68Ga-DOTATATE at primary and metastatic sites. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were negatively correlated with the extent of liver or bone metastases (p < 0.05), but not significantly correlated with tumor grade or 18F-FDG PET/CT positivity. By the hybrid method, PFS was significantly shorter in patients with high SRETVwb, and OS was significantly shorter in those with high SRETVwb and TLSREwb (p < 0.05). However, when derived from method A or method B, neither SRETVwb nor TLSREwb could predict patient outcomes. Conclusion: Compared with other methods used in 68Ga-DOTATATE-avid stage IV NENs, our hybrid SUV thresholding method demonstrated robustness, with greater precision, reliability, and prognostic power.