Role of PET/CT screening in detecting a second primary carcinoma in patients with malignant lymphoma.

摘要

Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) using ~(18)F fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has come to be accepted for the diagnosis, staging, and treatment evaluation of malignant lymphoma [1, 2]. The uptake of ~(18)F FDG is increased in most types of cancers as compared with normal organs [3]. Therefore, we sometimes come across cases with unsuspected findings in staging or in the follow-up of patients with malignant lymphoma [4]. We observed three cases of malignant lymphoma in which another carcinoma was detected in the initial staging. The effectiveness of detecting another carcinoma using FDG-PET in the initial tumor staging has been reported in the literature [5]. However, there is no report on the detection of a second primary carcinoma among a cohort of patients with malignant lymphoma. We retrospectively evaluated whether PET/CT is useful for detecting another carcinoma in initial staging of malignant lymphoma.