October 2025 - Total-Body PET/CT Could Cut Radiation Dose for Lymphoma Patients

A new study by Clemens Mingels from Bern, Switzerland, suggests that total-body (TB) PET/CT scans may allow for much lower radiation doses without compromising diagnostic accuracy in lymphoma patients. Researchers tested how far injected activity of the tracer
¹⁸F-FDG could be reduced while still providing reliable images for therapy response assessment.

Twenty-four patients were scanned at 1 and 2 hours post-injection using both standard and simulated low-dose settings. Even when tracer doses were cut to as little as 1/12th of the standard level, key tumor measurements – including metabolic tumor volume and lesion glycolysis – remained accurate. Importantly, therapy response classifications (Deauville scores) were unchanged down to 0.25 MBq/kg at 1 hour and 1.0 MBq/kg at 2 hours. 

These results indicate that TB PET/CT can maintain clinical reliability with greatly reduced tracer doses, potentially improving patient comfort and safety during cancer monitoring.