Quantitative PET-based biomarkers in lymphoma: getting ready for primetime

Area of Science:

• Nuclear Medicine
• Oncology
• Radiology

Background:

• Functional quantitative biomarkers from PET-CT scans are increasingly used for lymphoma patient response characterization.
• These biomarkers show potential to surpass established clinical risk factors in predicting outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the current knowledge, challenges, and opportunities in integrating quantitative PET-based biomarkers into lymphoma clinical trials and routine management.
• To highlight the potential of these biomarkers in individualized survival estimation and risk-adapted treatment strategies.

Main Methods:

• Review of current literature on quantitative PET-CT biomarkers in lymphoma.
• Discussion of machine learning applications in molecular imaging for tumor identification and segmentation.
• Exploration of radiomics for comprehensive tumor characterization and integration with genomic data.

Main Results:

• Quantitative PET-CT biomarkers, such as total metabolic tumor volume, can individualize survival predictions and predict therapy response.
• Automated methods for calculating PET-based biomarkers show good correlation with expert calculations, supporting large-scale studies.
• Radiomics offers a detailed view of disease heterogeneity and can enhance prognostic accuracy when combined with genomic data.

Conclusions:

• Quantitative PET-based biomarkers hold significant promise for lymphoma management but require prospective validation to address current methodological shortcomings.
• Integration into clinical decision-making necessitates addressing validation and standardization issues.
• Future improvements in PET-based biomarkers are expected, paving the way for enhanced risk-adapted treatment approaches.