Prognostic impact of clinician-based interpretation of FDG-PET/CT reports obtained in patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of clinician-interpretation of PET/CT reports at mid-therapy, interim PET (I-PET) and after end of first-line therapy (E-PET) in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Four hundred and thirty patients were enrolled in this study comprising a total of 617 PET reports. Each report was evaluated by three expert hematologists randomly selected from a panel of nine. Reports were labeled positive or negative if all three interpreters agreed. All others were considered indeterminate. Indeterminate reports accounted for 59% of I-PET and 49% of E-PET reports. Two-year overall survival (OS) for patients with a positive, indeterminate and negative I-PET was 58%, 87% and 89% (p