Grueneisen and colleagues scanned 42 patients using whole-body FDG-PET/MRI (Biograph mMR, Siemens Healthcare) and DWI to stage lymphoma prior to treatment and monitor the disease's progression after therapy.
The researchers found malignant lesions in 23 of the lymphoma patients, with FDG-PET/MRI correctly identifying all of these patients and achieving true-negative status in 95% of the cases. In comparison, DWI correctly identified 87% of the patients with malignant lesions, with a true-negative rate of 89%.
FDG-PET/MRI outperformed DWI in terms of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and diagnostic accuracy, the researchers concluded.
"The present study underlines the usefulness of F-18 FDG PET data as a valuable additive to MR imaging for a more accurate evaluation of patients with lymphomas, enabling a reduction of false-positive findings," they wrote.
