Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy in the initial staging of Hodgkin's disease.

Somatostatin receptor (SS-R) scintigraphy has been successfully used in the visualization of a variety of neuroendocrine tumours. In vitro studies have shown that SS-Rs are present in human malignant lymphomas. We conducted a prospective study in 56 consecutive untreated patients with histologically proven Hodgkin's disease (HD) and compared the results of SS-R scintigraphy with physical and radiological examinations as initial evaluation. SS-R scintigraphy was positive in 55/56 (98%) patients at sites of documented disease. In 20 patients SS-R scintigraphy disclosed lymphoma localizations not revealed following procedures of conventional staging. As a result in 12 patients (21%) SS-R scintigraphy produced a change of stage and in seven patients (13%) the additional information obtained from SS-R scintigraphy led to a change of treatment. SS-R scintigraphy failed to visualize sites of HD in four patients, mainly in the abdominal area. In three patients a false-positive result was obtained. These data show that SS-R scintigraphy provides an imaging technique that appears to visualize tumours in most patients with HD and may be clinically useful in the management of these patients.