Utilization of 18F-FDG PET/CT as a staging tool in patients with newly diagnosed lymphoma

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of 2-fluorine-18-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in the initial staging and prediction of bone marrow involvement in patients with newly diagnosed lymphoma. A total of 185 patients with newly diagnosed lymphoma were enrolled. All patients received PET/CT and bone marrow biopsy as part of a staging work-up. At the initial staging, 17 patients (9.2%) with occult nodal or extranodal lesions were upstaged after a review of the PET/CT studies. PET/CT was found to be useful in the differentiation of aggressive lymphoma subtypes from the indolent subtype based on higher standardized uptake value (SUV) (16.67 vs. 7.98, p