The Role of F-18 FLT PET/CT for Selecting the Patients Who Need Maintenance Treatment After First-line Chemotherapy in Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancers

Standard therapy for patients with advanced NSCLC is platinum based doublet chemotherapy. Current first-line chemotherapy is usually limited to 4-6 cycles, as prolonging treatment does not result in additional benefit and may often cause further toxicity. Until recently, treatment guidelines recommended withholding administration of later-line systemic anti-cancer treatment until disease progression.

There are several reports suggesting that maintenance therapy following first-line chemotherapy offers improved survival in advance stage patients. This approach involves the administration of an active treatment immediately after first-line chemotherapy, thus maintaining the clinical benefit initially obtained. However, drug related toxicity and costs are of great concern. There may also be patients with less aggressive disease where an immediate transition to maintenance therapy after first-line results in overtreatment.

Therefore, selecting patients who require more aggressive treatment or earlier intervention is necessary.

If FLT PET/CT can discriminate the patients with shorter progression free survival and overall survival in this pilot study, patients could be selected for more aggressive or earlier treatment such as maintenance therapy, and the investigators could expect to prolong survival while reducing the adverse events and costs that will accompany inconsequential therapy with FLT PET/CT.