F-18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography in the assessment of peripheral T-cell lymphomas

F-18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography (PET) is highly sensitive and specific in the imaging of B-cell lymphomas. In contrast, its utility in the diagnostic evaluation of T-cell lymphomas is less defined. In this article, we present our finding utilizing PET in peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCL). A retrospective review of patients who underwent PET examinations at our institution produced 24 PET examinations among patients with PTCL. A lesion-based analysis was undertaken to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of PET in PTCL. PET findings were compared with a standard of reference and sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were calculated. PET had an overall sensitivity of 86% and specificity of 100%. PET had high sensitivity (95%) at nodal and non-cutaneous extra-nodal sites and poor sensitivity (13%) at cutaneous sites. The mean SUV of abnormal foci in anaplastic large cell lymphoma was 11 mg/ml (range: 3 - 40), and PTCL-unclassified was 8 mg/ml (range: 1 - 23).