ABDOMINAL LYMPHOMA: IMAGING WORK UP CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS IN RESOURCE LIMITED SETUP

Lymphoma management begins with an accurate diagnosis & staging. Major advances in imaging techniques, make cross sectional imaging and nuclear medicine technique an excellent tool for patient work up. However, limited access to modern imaging modality in resource limited set up and luck of standardized imaging work up challenged patient's management. Assess the local lymphoma imaging work up and management challenges in patients with lymphoma and develop local imaging and reporting guideline. A semistructured qualitative interview to six conveniently selected physicians (hematologists, oncologists & pathologists) who primarily takes care of lymphoma patient and literature review on the role of various imaging modalities, recommendation and experience of other countries were used as a methodology Conventional and basic imaging modalities are used in the work up of patient in our set up. The imaging recommendation for these patients requires at least CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis for initial diagnosis and FDG-PET and/or PET-CTfor follow up and recurrence. Due to the comparable diagnostic potentials of US and its wide spread availability, makes US still the primary imaging modality. Luck of required information's and inconsistency in the radiologists report found to challenge physicians in their patient management. The study concluded that US should still stay as the most important imaging modality in the initial treatment, staging and follow up patients in resource limited set up. It also recommended the general imaging work up and reporting framework.