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Role of CT Density in PET/CT-Based Assessment of Lymphoma

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Abstract

Purpose

In patients with Hodgkin (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), primary staging, as well as intermediate and late response assessment, is often performed by integrated 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose ([18F]FDG) positron emission tomography/X-ray computed tomography (PET/CT). The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate if findings in patients with histopathologically proven HL or NHL might correlate with semi-automated density measurements of target lesions (TLs) in the CT component of the integrated PET/CT examination.

Procedures

After approval by the institutional review board, 176 lymph nodes (LN) in 90 PET/CT examinations of 90 patients were retrospectively analyzed (HL, 108 TLs out of 55 patients; NHL, 68 TLs out of 35 patients). PET/CT was performed for reasons of primary staging, response evaluation as interim PET, or as final examination after therapy, according to the clinical schedule. Analyses of TLs were performed on the basis of tracer uptake (SUV) 60 min after tracer injection and volumetric CT histogram analysis in non-contrast-enhanced CT.

Results

All patients were diagnosed with HL or NHL in a pretreatment biopsy. Prior to therapy induction, staging of all patients was performed using contrast-enhanced CT of the neck to the pelvis, or by [18F]FDG PET/CT. Of the 176 TLs, 119 were classified as malignant, and 57 were benign. Malignant TLs had significantly higher CT density values compared to benign (p < 0.01).

Conclusion

Density measurements of TLs in patients with HL and NHL correlate with the dignity of TLs and might therefore serve as a complementary surrogate parameter for the differentiation between malignant and benign TLs. A possible density threshold in clinical routine might be a 20-Hounsfield units (HU) cutoff value to rule out benignancy in TLs that are above the 20-HU threshold.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Heidelberg, INF 400, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Paul Flechsig, Christina Walker, Clemens Kratochwil, Uwe Haberkorn & Frederik L. Giesel

  2. Translational Lung Research Center Heidelberg, Member of the German Center for Lung Research DZL, Heidelberg, Germany

    Paul Flechsig, Hans-Ulrich Kauczor, Uwe Haberkorn & Frederik L. Giesel

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Laila König

  4. Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Andrei Iagura

  5. Fraunhofer MEVIS, Institute for Medical Image Computing, Bremen, Germany

    Jan Moltz

  6. Department of Biostatistics, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany

    Tim Holland-Letz

  7. Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Hans-Ulrich Kauczor

  8. Clinical Cooperation Unit, Department of Nuclear Medicine, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany

    Uwe Haberkorn & Frederik L. Giesel

  9. Department of Radiology, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Centre, New York, NY, USA

    Frederik L. Giesel

Authors
  1. Paul Flechsig
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  2. Christina Walker
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  3. Clemens Kratochwil
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  7. Tim Holland-Letz
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  8. Hans-Ulrich Kauczor
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  9. Uwe Haberkorn
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  10. Frederik L. Giesel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul Flechsig.

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The study was approved by the institutional review board and conducted according to the guidelines of the institutional review board and to good clinical practice according to the ethical principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Flechsig, P., Walker, C., Kratochwil, C. et al. Role of CT Density in PET/CT-Based Assessment of Lymphoma. Mol Imaging Biol 20, 641–649 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11307-017-1155-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11307-017-1155-x

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