Journal: Translational psychiatry
This multicenter longitudinal study investigated the use of 18-F FDG PET/CT imaging to identify brain metabolic markers that predict depression risk in adolescent and early young adult (AeYA) cancer survivors aged 15-25 years.
The study analyzed two independent cohorts (n=923 and n=518) over approximately 3 years and found:
- Reduced glucose metabolism (SUVmean) in the ventral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala significantly predicted future depression onset.
- This prediction was independent of clinical, psychosocial, and treatment factors.
A radiomic nomogram based on these metabolic features showed high predictive accuracy, with a C-index of 0.91 and 0.88 in the discovery and validation cohorts, respectively.
These findings suggest that 18-F FDG PET/CT could be repurposed as a non-invasive tool for early identification and preemptive risk stratification of depression in AeYA cancer survivors.