RESEARCH ARTICLE Influence of Software Tool and Methodological Aspects of Total Metabolic Tumor Volume Calculation on Baseline [18F] FDG PET to Predict Survival in Hodgkin

Aim To investigate the respective influence of software tool and total metabolic tumor volume (TMTV0) calculation method on prognostic stratification of baseline 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography ([18F]FDG-PET) in newly diagnosed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). Methods 59 patients with newly diagnosed HL were retrospectively included. [18F]FDG-PET was performed before any treatment. Four sets of TMTV0 were calculated with Beth Israel (BI) software: based on an absolute threshold selecting voxel with standardized uptake value (SUV)>2.5 (TMTV02.5), applying a per-lesion threshold of 41 % of the SUVmax (TMTV041) and using a per-patient adapted threshold based on SUVmax of the liver (>125 % and>140 % of SUVmax of the liver background; TMTV0125 and TMTV0140). TMTV041 was also determined with commercial software for comparison of software tools. ROC curves were used to determine the optimal threshold for each TMTV0 to predict treatment failure. Result