FDG-PET in the evaluation of lymphomas

FDG-PET has become widely used in the management of patients with malignant lymphomas especially diffuse large B cell (DLBCL) and Hodgkin lymphomas (HL). The clearest role for FDG-PET is in restaging patients following the completion of therapy. Recommendations must be followed for the interpretation of images. FDG-PET is strongly encouraged during the initial assessment of the disease in patients with HL and DLBCL-NHL to assess the extent of the disease with higher sensitivity and specificity than CT and to facilitate the interpretation of equivocal posttherapy. If numerous studies have confirmed that mid-treatment PET scans predict clinical outcome, the impact of a change induced by early therapeutic FDG-PET remains to be determined and the criteria for interpreting the early assessment must be standardized. For other types of lymphoma, FDG-PET may be interesting to confirm the localized stages for patients with follicular lymphoma and to guide biopsy in a patient suffering from low-grade with clinical suspicion of aggressive transformation.