Importance of Histological Verification of Positive Positron Emission Tomography /Computed Tomography Findings in the Follow-up of Patients with Malignant Lymphoma

This study emphasizes that the histological diagnosis should be confirmed in post-therapy PET/CT-positive patients via biopsy before adjusting the treatment regimen due to the high false-positive rate including unexpected SPM or benign/normal tissue lesions. Teaser We evaluated histologically-verified post-therapy PET-positive lesions in the follow-up of 190 patients with malignant lymphoma in the first complete remission. Among 32 histologically-verified patients, 10 exhibited relapse of lymphoma, 11 were second primary malignancies and 11 were benign/normal lesions. The symptomatic PET-positive patients had a significantly shorter overall survival than the asymptomatic PET-positive patients. The histological diagnosis should be considered in post-therapy PET/CT-positive lymphoma patients.
Source: Clinical Lymphoma Myeloma and Leukemia - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research