Which patients with DLBCL may benefit from PET-directed induction therapy?

During the 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in Orlando, US, the Lymphoma Hub was delighted to speak to Sonali from the University of Chicago, Chicago, US. We asked Sonali Smith: which patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) may benefit from PET directed induction therapy?

Sonali Smith explains PET scans are routinely used in both interim and end-of-treatment analysis (which is highly prognostic of outcome in patients with DBLC). She discusses two abstracts that inform the management of patients with limited-stage DLBCL; the prospective SWOG S1001 study, that evaluated limited-stage DLBCL using PET directed therapy. The second study was a database evaluation of patients with DLBCL who received PET directed therapy based on provincial guidelines. Both of these studies demonstrated PET results were effective in guiding patient treatment pathway. Sonali Smith also explains that both of these studies add to the FLYER study, that observed similar results in a different patient population, and concluded that consistent results are encouraging.