The predictive role of metabolic tumor volume on no response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer

Introduction To evaluate the predictive significance of pretreatment metabolic tumor volume on pathologic response in patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. Methods Seventy patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy between 2013 and 2017 years were enrolled in the study. Pathologic responses and 18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography metabolic dates of patients were obtained from archive files. Results Forty-six (65.7%) patients were in stage II and 24 (34.3%) patients were in stage III; 25 (35.7%) patients were human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive, 46 (65.7%) patients were estrogen receptor-positive, 26 (37.1%) patients were progesterone receptor-positive. According to the Miller-Payne grading system, 24 (34.3%) patients constituted 100% pathological response; patients with 91-99% pathological response were 12 (17.1%), the number of patients with non-pathologic response was 6 (8.6%). Median metabolic tumor volume was 7.3 cm(3) (7.1 +/- 3.5), 8.8 (11.4 +/- 9.4), 7.7 (8.3 +/- 4.6) and 22 cm(3) (19.8 +/- 11.0) in patients with stages IIA, IIB, IIIA, and IIIB, respectively (p = 0.032). In Miller-Payne grading, the median metabolic tumor volume value was higher in patients with no pathologic response group than 100% response group (p = 0.003). The cut-off metabolic tumor volume value determining no pathologic response was calculated as higher than 13.62 cm(3) (sensitivity 83.3% and specificity 82.8%). Conclusions Our study results suggest that higher pretreatment metabolic tumor volume values are predictive on no pathologic response in patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer.