Brain metabolic changes in hodgkin disease patients following diagnosis and during the disease course: An 18F-FDG PET/CT study

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate brain glucose metabolism in patients with Hodgkin disease (HD) after diagnosis and during chemotherapy treatment. Following the administration of first-line doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy, 74 HD patients underwent 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography brain scans, both baseline (PET0) and interim (PET2) at the Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy). Fifty-seven patients were further evaluated 15±6 days after four additional cycles (PET6). Furthermore, a control group (CG) of 40 chemotherapy-naïve subjects was enrolled. Differences in brain 18F-FDG uptake between the CG, PET0, PET2 and PET6 scans were analyzed using statistical parametric mapping. Compared with the PET0 and CG scans, the PET2 scan demonstrated a higher metabolic activity in Brodmann area (BA) 39, and a metabolic reduction in BA 11 bilaterally and in left BA 32. All of these changes disappeared at PET6. The results of the present study indicate that ABVD chemotherapy has a limited impact on brain metabolism.