Discussion of 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging characteristics and diagnostic values of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma

Abstract

The aim of this study was to discuss ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT imaging characteristics and diagnostic values of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL). The PET/CT features of 24 cases of pathologically confirmed AITL were analyzed. The individual and total diagnostic values of 13 sites using computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET)/CT were calculated. The maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) of lesions with lymph node infiltration and extranodal organ infiltration were 5.4–25.1 (median, 9.7) and 1.5–12.5 (median, 5.5), respectively. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of AITL using CT were 78.3%, 100%, and 87.8%, respectively; using PET/CT, these values were 98.9%, 100%, and 99.4%, respectively. One patient undergoing PET/CT staging was upstaged from stage II to III, and two patients were upstaged from stage III to IV. PET/CT is very valuable in the diagnosis and staging of AITL.

Keywords:

• Immunoblastic lymphadenopathy
• lymphoma
• T cell
• peripheral
• fluorodeoxyglucose F18
• positron emission tomography
• multidetector computed tomography

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10428194.2016.1253834.