Primary sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung: radiometabolic (18F-FDG PET/CT) findings and correlations with clinico-pathological and survival results

Introduction: Pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma (PSC) is a very rare and uninvestigated subtype of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: The aims of this study were to define the radiometabolic features (by 18F-FDG PET/CT) in a bi-centric cohort of 49 PSC patients and to explore their relation with clinico-pathological characteristics and long-term survival results after surgical treatment. Results: There were 40 males and 9 females aged 65.2 ± 10.47 years. Overall long-term survival was 26.7 % at 5 years. Mean and median values of SUVmax were 15.21 and 15, respectively (SD ±5.5). Performing an age-, gender- and staging-matched analysis comparing PSC Stage-I only with a cohort of Stage-I NSCLC (n = 93), we observed significantly higher SUVmax values in PSC group (15.11 vs 7.66, p = 0.001). Conclusions: No differences in terms of SUVmax were found with regard to tumour dimensions, histology (pure vs mixed, pleomorphic vs others), pathological stage and pattern of recurrence. P-stage, surgical radicality, vascular/lymphatic invasion but not SUVmax affected long-term survival in PSC