Prognostic value of (18)F-FDG PET/CT after first-line treatment in patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma

2012

[Article in Chinese]

Ying ZT, Wang XJ, Song YQ, Zheng W, Wang XP, Xie Y, Lin NJ, Tu MF, Ping LY, Liu WP, Deng LJ, Zhang C, Yang Z, Zhu J.

Source

Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Department of Lymphoma, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Beijing 100142, China.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the value of (18)F-FDG PET/CT in detecting residual disease and predicting relapse following first-line treatment in patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

METHODS:

The clinical data of 39 patients with DLBCL, who underwent PET/CT scan after first-line treatment, were analyzed retrospectively. Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the survival of patients.

RESULTS:

PET/CT findings were interpreted as negative, mild metabolism and positive. Seventeen patients' PET/CT findings were judged as negative, none of them relapsed with a median follow-up of 24.1 months, 13 were judged as mild metabolism, 2 of them relapsed with a median follow-up of 17.1 months. Of the rest 9 findings were judged as positive with a median follow-up of 16.3 months, 4 patients were considered as disease progression according to clinical manifestations and other radiographic results, 2 patients relapsed at the timepoints of 13.5 and 6.8 months after PET/CT scan respectively, the other 3 patients were diagnosed as negative by biopsy, none of them relapsed at the timepoints of 5.9, 9.6 and 20.0 months after PET/CT scan respectively. One-year progression-free-survival (PFS) for negative, mild metabolism and positive groups was 100%, 83% and 56%, respectively. Two-year PFS was 100%, 83% and 42%, respectively. Overall survival (OS) at 1 year for negative, mild metabolism and positive groups was 100%, 100% and 89%, respectively. Two-year OS was 100%, 100% and 63%, respectively (P = 0.004).

CONCLUSION:

DLBCL patients with negative and mild metabolism PET/CT following first-line treatment had good prognosis, who needed no additional therapy. While patients with positive PET/CT had poor prognosis, those patients should receive biopsy before adjusting treatment regimen because of the high false-positive rate.

PubMed