Detection of bone marrow involvement in newly diagnosed post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder: (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography versus bone marrow biopsy.

Detecting bone marrow involvement (BMI) in lymphoma is important as it adversely affects stage. Bone marrow biopsy (BMB) remains the standard to detect BMI but is prone to sampling error. We retrospectively investigated whether (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography with computed tomography ((18)F-FDG-PET/CT) could identify BMI in patients with post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) with sufficient accuracy in comparison with staging BMB. Twenty-five patients diagnosed with PTLD who underwent (18)F-FDG-PET/CT and BMB within one month were evaluated. Based on our criteria, six patients (24%) were considered positive for BMI on (18)F-FDG-PET/CT compared to one by BMB. Although we cannot completely exclude false positive results on (18)F-FDG-PET/CT, our data indicate a significantly higher sensitivity of (18)F-FDG-PET/CT compared to BMB (100% vs 17%) but similar specificity. These data confirm the high diagnostic performance of (18)F-FDG-PET/CT for detecting BMI, but prospective studies are needed to determine whether (18)F-FDG-PET/CT could indeed replace staging BMB in PTLD.