Factors associated with ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in T1 and T2 invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between diversity of ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) uptake of primary tumor in positron emission tomography (PET) and various clinicopathologic factors in breast cancer of same pathologic T1, T2 stage. A total of 258 patients with invasive ductal breast cancer were enrolled in this study. All patients underwent ¹⁸F-FDG PET-CT before surgery. Patients were divided into two groups according to tumor size based on the pathologic T stage, and maximum standardized uptake value (SUV_max) of 2.5, respectively. On the univariate analysis, estrogen receptor (ER), tumor size, lymphovascular invasion, p53, pathologic N status (pN) and Nottingham tumor grade (NG) were associated with high SUV_max in T1 and T2 breast cancer. On the multivariate logistic regression, tumor size and NG remained significant variables dividing high and low SUV_max. In the T1 group, ER, p53 and NG were significantly associated with high SUV_max on the univariate analysis. In this group, p53 and NG remained significant variables for dividing high and low SUV_max on the multivariate logistic regression. In the T2 group, only NG was associated with high SUV_max on the univariate analysis.NG showed an association with ¹⁸F-FDG uptake in both T1 and T2 breast cancer independently; however, p53 in T1 breast cancer