Dr. Ansell on the Role of PET Scans in Hodgkin Lymphoma

Stephen M. Ansell, MD, PhD, chair of the Lymphoma Group at Mayo Clinic, discusses the role of positron emission tomography (PET) scans in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma.

PET scans have become useful for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma due to the standardization of how results are interpreted, according to Ansell. Factors that have been developed over time include the Deauville score, which allows one to determine which patients benefit from PET scans, in addition to understanding what makes a scan positive vs negative. These factors have helped the field understand whether a patient is experiencing a good or poor response to treatment, Ansell says.

The standardization of how results are interpreted has now been built into clinical research, which has become useful in determining whether patients required more treatment vs less treatment. The benefit from PET scans, or the benefit that is seen in terms of responses, is more prognostic than many of the prognostic factors that have been utilized in the past, Ansell concludes.