Different histopathological subtypes of Hodgkin lymphoma show significantly different levels of FDG uptake

Positron emission tomography using 2-18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG-PET) enables quantitative analysis of metabolic activity. This study investigated standardized uptake value (SUV) levels in the different histopathological subtypes of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). Sixty patients with newly diagnosed HL underwent staging FDG-PET/CT after lymph node biopsy. Maximum SUV in each patient (SUV(max/total)) and in each affected region or organ (SUV(max)) were recorded. Mean SUV(max/total) was 9.3 g/ml in seven nodular lymphocyte predominance (NLP) patients, 16.3 g/ml in 38 nodular sclerosis (NS) patients, 20.8 g/ml in 11 mixed cellularity (MC) patients, and 19.5 g/ml in four patients with unclassified classical HL (CHL-NOS), (ANOVA, p = 0.011). Out of 780 sites (600 lymph node regions plus 180 organs), 208 sites were found to be affected with HL. Mean SUV(max) was 8.3 g/ml in the 12 sites with NLP, 11.2 g/ml in the 147 sites affected with NS, 14.6 g/ml in the 36 sites with MC, and 13.1 g/ml in the 13 sites with CHL-NOS (ANOVA, p = 0.002). There is a significant difference in FDG/glucose uptake between the different histopathological subtypes of HL.