Monitoring response in lymphomas: qualitative, quantitative, or what else?

Abstract

The Deauville criteria (DC) shall always be used to report interim and final PET and to assign metabolic response categories in FDG-avid lymphoma. A recent review article supports the role of quantitative extension of the DC to improve response assessment in lymphoma. We analyze different quantitative approach, to help physician to better distinguish what has to be done in every day clinical practice respect to what represent interesting insights and ongoing research. Respect to DC, all the proposed quantitative approaches obtained in retrospective studies, requires mature follow-up and a validation in independent cohorts of lymphoma patients. Moreover, the sensitivity of the system, not the adequate specificity of the tracer and the biology of the disease together with the DC, influence the accuracy of PET/CT. In conclusions, in current clinical practice, the DC, validated in a large cohort of lymphoma patients, represent the standard criteria for PET interpretation.

Keywords:

• Response assessment
• Deauville criteria
• quantitative criteria
• lymphoma

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Adrew Parry for the English revision of the manuscript.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10428194.2018.1480773.