Abstract
Our objective was to evaluate the value of 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) versus diagnostic contrast CT in the initial staging of pediatric Hodgkin disease (HD) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Thirty patients with HD and 21 patients with NHL were included in this retrospective study. On nodal lesion analysis, PET/CT detected 94.8% (HD) and 88.3% (NHL) of total lesions, respectively, in contrast to 82.6% (HD) and 69.1% (NHL), respectively, for diagnostic contrast CT. PET/CT also detected more extranodal lesions. On the patient level, PET/CT detected additional lesions in 50% of patients with HD and in 42.9% of patients with NHL. In contrast, diagnostic contrast CT detected additional lesions in 16.7% (HD) and 23.8% (NHL) of total cases. FDG PET/CT led to upstaging in seven cases of HD and seven cases of NHL, while diagnostic contrast CT upstaged two cases of NHL. We conclude that FDG PET/CT outperforms diagnostic contrast CT in the initial staging of pediatric patients with lymphoma.
Potential conflict of interest
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.informahealthcare.com/lal.