The diagnostic value of pretreatment 18F-FDG PET/CT in early-stage extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL) is established, but its prognostic value is still unclear. We conducted 18F-FDG PET/CT-based quantitative and qualitative analysis as well as assessed related clinical parameters in 50 patients with recently diagnosed ENKTL and treated with methotrexate, etoposide, dexamethasone, and pegaspargase (MESA)-based therapy. Patients were followed-up for 38.6 ± 17.8 months. Six patients died of tumor-related disease, and six patients presented with persistence or recurrence. The estimates of the 2-year OS and PFS for the patients were 90.0% (SE: 4.0%) and 82.0% (SE: 5.0%), respectively. Survival curves were obtained using Kaplan-Meier analysis and compared using log rank test. Based on signifiacnt results of univariate analysis, we selected Epstein-Barr virus DNA (EB-DNA), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) for multivariate analysis. Finally, MTV was found to be the significant independent predictor of both OS (p = .038) and PFS (p = .039).
Keywords: 18F-FDG PET/CT; ENKTL; early-stage; prognosis.