Quantitative PET imaging finds early determination of effectiveness of cancer treatment

With positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, seeing is believing: Evaluating a patient`s response to chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) typically involves visual interpretation of scans of cancer tumors. Researchers have found that measuring a quantitative index—one that reflects the reduction of metabolic activity after chemotherapy first begins—adds accurate information about patients` responses to first-line chemotherapy, according to a study in the October issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.