title: Advantages of positron emission tomography (PET) with respect to computed tomography in the follow-up of lymphoma patients with abdominal presentation.
abstract: For abdominal lymphoma patients, fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET) provides unique information on the presence of residual active disease. We provide an update on the largest reported cohort of patients whose management following induction therapy was based on routine PET and computed tomography (CT) restaging. Fifty-nine patients with Hodgkin's disease or aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma presenting abdominal involvement (35% with bulky disease) were studied with both PET and CT following combined chemotherapy/radiation treatment. After treatment, 3/3 (100%) patients who were PET+/CT- relapsed, compared with 0/7 patients in the PET-/CT- subset. Among the 49 patients who were CT+, six of the 10 (60%) who were PET+ relapsed, as compared with only two of the 39 (5%) who were PET-. The actuarial relapse-free survival (RFS) rates were 0 and 100% in the PET+/CT- and PET-/CT- subsets, respectively. In the PET+/CT+ subset, RFS was 94% at 5 years. PET restaging is very valuable for the identification of patients who would need appropriate second-line therapy because of the presence of residual active abdominal disease and should be made widely available in combination with CT.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hematology and Medical Oncology Seràgnoli, University of Bologna, Italy. plzinzo@med.unibo.it
authors.forename: P L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Zinzani
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chierichetti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zompatori
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tani
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Stefoni
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Garraffa
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Albertini
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Alinari
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ferlin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baccarani
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tura
mesh_terms: D000008:Abdominal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015331:Cohort Studies; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D008223:Lymphoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018365:Neoplasm, Residual; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012008:Recurrence; D012074:Remission Induction; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18