[Correlation and Influencing Factors of SUVmax and Ki-67 in Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma]

Objective: To investigate the influencing factors of maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) of ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and nuclear antigen Ki-67 in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and their correlation.

Methods: The relationship between SUVmax, Ki-67 and gender, age, maximum lesion diameter, extranodal involvement, superficial and deep lymph node involvement, malignancy, B symptoms, clinical stage, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and international prognostic index (IPI) scores and their correlation were reviewed.

Results: Among 185 NHL patients, 99 cases were aggressive B-cell NHL, 43 cases were indolent B-cell NHL, and 43 cases were T-cell NHL, respectively. Obviously, the SUVmax and Ki-67 of aggressive B-cell NHL were higher than those of indolent B-cell NHL and T-cell NHL (P<0.05), while indolent B-cell NHL were lower than those of T-cell NHL (P<0.05). SUVmax and Ki-67 were closely related to maximum lesion diameter, extranodal involvement, malignancy, LDH, and IPI scores (P<0.05). SUVmax was positively correlated with Ki-67 expression (r=0.615). According to the analysis of receiver operating characteristic (ROC), the results showed that the SUVmax and Ki-67 could reflect the aggressiveness of NHL accurately, with an AUC of 0.871 and 0.968.

Conclusion: SUVmax and Ki-67 are not affected by age, sex, B symptoms, clinical stage and so on, and are relatively objective quantitative parameters. SUVmax is positively correlated with Ki-67 expression in NHL. SUVmax and Ki-67 have certain value in clinical diagnosis of malignant degree of NHL.