Diagnosis of lymph node metastasis in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient on F-18-FDG PET/CT

Lung Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, and about 85% of lung cancer is non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The staging of lymph nodes in NSCLC patients is extremely important because respective stages require different treatments. FDG-PET/CT is a gold standard for lymph node metastasis staging of NSCLC. However, the results of discriminating lymph node staging on 18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) / computed tomography (CT) still needs improvement. In addition to the traditional image parameters of FDG-PET/CT such as standardized uptake value (SUV), there are many other parameters available from FDG-PET/CT images, for example, the lymphatic drainage pathway. Other than this, texture analysis which distinguishes subtle difference can also be a way to define lymph node staging. For the purpose of a better accuracy on lymph node metastasis diagnosis on NSCLC patient in FDG-PET/CT, this research developed a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to improve the diagnostic efficiency, which achieved 88.056% accuracy.