In a nutshell
This review looked at the ability of F-luoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission topography (FDG-PET) to predict complete disease remission in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma who have completed first-line treatment. The authors suggested that FDG-PET may not be fully accurate at predicting remission in patients who have completed first-line chemotherapy.
Some background
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is generally considered a curable cancer. More than 80% of patients treated with first-line chemotherapy or radiation will be cured. Some patients, however, will relapse after this therapy.
It is important to identify patients who will relapse so they can start further therapy. FDG-PET is used by doctors to determine if someone is in complete remission (all signs of cancer are gone). However, there are few studies that show strong evidence that FDG-PET is accurate at assessing which patients are in remission.
Methods & findings
This study examined how accurately FDG-PET scans predicted complete remission in patients after first-line chemotherapy.
14 previous studies were reviewed, including a total of 1137 patients with HL. All patients were classified as in complete remission after an FDG-PET scan following completion of first-line treatment.
Between 0% and 26.7% of patients who were classified as in complete remission relapsed during the follow-up period. An overall average of 7.5% of patients relapsed.
In patients with early stage disease, the relapse rate ranged from 1.3% to 13.8%, with an average of 5.7%. In patients with late-stage disease, the relapse-rate was between 0% and 26.7% with a weighted average of 8.6%.
The bottom line
The authors suggest that FDG-PET cannot completely rule out some remaining disease.
Published By :
Annals of Hematology
Date :
Jan 01, 2016
