NEW YORK (Reuters Health), Apr 21 - Dynamic contrast-enhanced CT (DCE-CT) can provide potentially useful information in patients with non-small cell lung cancer scheduled for radiation therapy, German researchers report in an April 3 online paper in Lung Cancer.
In particular, DCE-CT provides "local tumor blood supply parameters, such as relative tumor blood volume and transfer coefficient" that convey information "concerning tumor radiosensitivity and therapy outcome," coauthor Dr. Andrij Abramyuk told Reuters Health by e-mail.
Dr. Abramyuk and colleagues at the Technical University of Dresden studied relative tumor blood volume and transfer coefficient in 31 patients with clinically inoperable disease. Nineteen received induction chemotherapy; the others did not.
Both values showed a wide range. However, the researchers found a significant difference in relative tumor blood volume between patients with and without induction chemotherapy (4.6 mL versus 7 mL per 100 mL), depending on the number of cycles and clinical stage.
Overall, 20 patients had radiotherapy with curative intent and seven with palliative intent. Four did not receive radiotherapy.
Over a median follow-up of 16 months, the transfer coefficient was significantly and inversely correlated with time to progression in the 24 patients in whom such data were analyzed.
The researchers suggest that chemotherapy-mediated changes in relative tumor blood volume, as a function of oxygen consumption, "may represent a modification of radioresistance and, consequently, reveal clinical impact."
Transfer coefficient may become a relevant predictive factor, they add, "allowing individualization of radiotherapy strategy."
By David Douglas
Lung Cancer 2010.
Last Updated: 2010-04-20 15:35:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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