Value of qPET in Pediatric Patients with Hodgkin Lymphoma

Introduction: qPET is a semi-automatic quantitative measurement used to 
assess the positron emission tomography (PET) response in lymphoma. The aim 
of this study was to compare qPET and the Deauville score (DS) and find their 
concordance in childhood Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients treated with the 
Euronet protocol at the Children Cancer Hospital Egypt (CCHE).
Materials and Methods: qPET is computed by dividing the peak standardized 
uptake value (SUV) of the hottest residual uptake by the mean SUV of the liver. 
Interim PET (iPET) will be evaluated in accordance with qPET and Deauville 
score (DS).
Results: We retrospectively analyzed 424 pediatric patients with HL, with a 
mean age of 10.1 (2-18) years. Based on iPET measurements, DS1was 
identified in 24 patients, DS2 in 106 patients, DS3 in 187 patients, DS4 in 77 
patients, and DS5 in 30 patients. 317 patients were negative (DS 1-3), while 107 
were positive (DS 4-5). qPET revealed that 341 patients were negative (<1.3), 
and 83 were positive (≥1.3). 
We found that 25 patients had a DS 4 (positive) and a qPET 3 (negative), out of 
these patients, two experienced a relapse, while the remaining twenty-three 
patients were in complete remission. 
The overall survival (OS) and Event free survival (EFS) for negative DS were 
99.1% and 90.4%, respectively. Similarly, for negative qPET, the OS and EFS 
were 99.2% and 88.3%, respectively. In contrast, the OS and EFS for positive 
DS were 95.3% and 80.1%, respectively, and for positive qPET, they were 
94.4% and 83.9%.
Conclusion: Our qPET results indicate that it is a suitable semi-automatic 
quantitative method for evaluating response in pediatric HL patients treated with 
the Euronet protocol.