Clinical significance of positron emission tomography for lymphoma patients

To explore the characteristics and clinical significance of positron emission tomography (PET) examination for malignant lymphoma.

PET examination was performed in 20 patients with malignant lymphoma, among whom 16 also received examination by computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

PET was found to have better diagnostic efficiency than CT or MRI examination and the former provided referential information in all the cases for estimation of the clinical stage, while CT and MRI were helpful in only 66.7% of the cases. FDG uptake as demonstrated by PET helped the assessment of the malignancies and prognosis, according to which treatment adjustment was implemented in 20 cases, resulting in a efficacy rate of 85.7%.

By integrating morphological and metabolic observations, PET is a superior diagnostic modality in terms of systemic identification, early detection, quantitative analysis, evaluating metabolic function of lesion monitoring therapeutic effect and making prognostic assessment of malignant lymphoma. In spite of the safety of PET examination, false positive results were not eliminated and blood sugar in patients with diabetes might be transiently affected by the tracing agents.