Emerging role of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography for guiding management of hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 3 Current literature evaluating the prognostic value of ¹⁸F-fluorodexoyglucose positron emission tomography in hepatocellular carcinoma patients with liver transplantation

First author	Year	No. of patients	Study design	PET parameter	Cut-off values of PET parameter	Findings
Yang et al[51]	2006	38	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	Patients with negative PET findings had significantly higher recurrence-free survival than those with positive findings
Kornberg et al[52]	2009	42	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	Patients with positive PET findings had significantly higher recurrence rate with lower recurrence-free survival than those with negative findings
Lee et al[39]	2009	59	Retrospective	Tmax/Lmax	1.15	Tmax/Lmax was an independent predictor for recurrence-free survival
Kornberg et al[53]	2012	91	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	PET finding was an independent prognostic variable for recurrence-free survival, and positive PET status was the independent predictor of patient dropout from the waiting list of liver transplantation
Lee et al[54]	2013	191	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	Positive PET status was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival influencing early recurrence
Detry et al[55]	2015	27	Retrospective	Tmax/Lmax	1.15	Tmax/Lmax independently predicted recurrence-free survival
Hong et al[56]	2016	123	Retrospective	TLR	1.10	Combination of serum AFP and PET finding predicted better disease-free survival than using the Milan criteria
Hsu et al[57]	2016	147	Retrospective	SUV, TLR	4.8, 2.0	Combination of UCSF criteria and PET finding can predict the risk of recurrence
Lee et al[58]	2016	280	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	The criteria combined of FDG PET and total tumor size can predict disease-free survival and overall survival, and showed similar area under the ROC curve of the Milan and UCSF criteria
Kornberg et al[59]	2017	116	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	Combining radiographic criteria with FDG PET finding can predict recurrence-free survival
Takada et al[60]	2017	182	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	PET positive status was an independent risk factor for recurrence-free survival
Ye et al[61]	2017	103	Retrospective	Visual analysis	-	Patients beyond the Milan criteria with a negative PET finding had comparable recurrence-free survival in comparison with those within the Milan criteria

FDG: ¹⁸F-fluorodexoyglucose; PET: Positron emission tomography; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; Tmax/Lmax: Maximum FDG uptake of tumor-to-maximum FDG uptake of the normal liver ratio; TLR: Tumor-to-non-tumor liver uptake ratio; SUV: Standardized uptake value; AFP: Alpha-fetoprotein; UCSF: University of California San Francisco; ROC: Receiver operating characteristic.