The role of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET in prognosis evaluation for stem cell transplantation of lymphoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

The role of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET (F-FDG PET) in prognostic evaluation of pre-stem cell transplantation (SCT) and post-SCT is still uncertain. A systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out to detect the prognostic power of F-FDG PET. 'PubMed', EMBASE, and Springer were searched for relevant articles. Subgroup analysis was carried out to evaluate the F-FDG PET in predicting the prognosis between Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Finally, 17 studies that included 1192 patients were eligible, 16 studies for progression-free survival (PFS) and 12 studies for overall survival (OS). For the pre-SCT PET or PET/computed tomography scan, the combined hazard ratios (HRs) of PET for PFS and OS were 2.32 and 2.64, respectively. Subgroup analysis showed that the HRs of PFS for HL and non-Hodgkin lymphoma were 3.28 and 2.00, respectively. For the post-SCT PET scan, the combined HR for PFS was 4.61. The sensitivity analysis showed that exlcusion of any single study had no significant effect on HR. We found that F-FDG PET was especially effective in predicting pre-STC and post-STC prognosis. The patients with a negative PET scan had a better prognosis compared with those with a positive scan in PFS and OS. In the subgroup analysis, F-FDG PET had a higher value in predicting prognosis before SCT for HL patients.