(18)F-FDG PET/CT and pain in metastatic bone cancer.

This study aims to determine if the pain intensity of patients with oncologic bone metastases (BM) correlates with metabolic activity measured by (18)F-FDG PET/CT. Twenty-eight patients, ages: 21-89 years (mean: 58.8) with BM were included in the study between September 2011 to September 2013. All patients completed a detailed questionnaire regarding pain symptoms on the visual analog scale (VAS), analgesic use, and areas of chronic pain, prior to obtaining an (18)F-FDG PET/CT. Pain symptoms were queried for 11 body regions including limbs, head, torso, etc. and the corresponding SUVmax of BMs within that region were modeled with the corresponding clinical data using a linear mixed effects model and a linear regression model. Overall 64 areas in the 28 subjects were found to have BM. SUVmax was found to be a significant predictor of pain intensity as measured by the VAS, with a P-value of 0.045, with a modest effect-size on linear regression of R(2) of 0.11.