PET/CT in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Treated by Radioimmunotherapy

Aims: It was the aim of this paper to identify prognostic factors in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, treated by radioimmunotherapy (RIT) with radioiodinated human/murine chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab ( 131 I-rituximab). Methods: Twenty-four patients were enrolled prospectively and were treated with unlabeled rituximab 70 mg and a therapeutic activity (median 7.3 GBq) of 131 I-rituximab. Contrast-enhanced 18 F-FDG PET/CT scans were performed before and after 1 month of RIT. Tumor sizes and maximum standardized uptake values (SUV max ) of scans were measured. Results: Four of the 24 patients survived. High SUV max in a pretreatment scan was found to be related to poorer overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (p = 0.04 and 0.02, respectively). Furthermore, a large tumor size in a pretreatment scan Received: July 25, 2012 Accepted after revision: November 22, 2012 Published online: March 20, 2013 Hye Jin Kang, MD Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine Korea Cancer Center Hospital, Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences 75 Nowon-gil, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-706 (Republic of Korea) E-Mail erosion @ daum.net © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel 0001–5792/13/1302–0074$38.00/0 www.karger.com/aha I.L. and J.Y.P. contributed equally to this work.