Whole Body Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in Staging and Follow up of Pediatric Patients with Lymphoma in a Tertiary Care Centre

Abstract

Introduction     Lymphoma is a malignancy  that can involve the lymphatic system or arise as extra nodal disease. In children Whole body scanning for Lymphoma was mostly performed  with positron emission tomography (PET) , nuclear medicine and with computed tomography (CT). Ionizing radiation characteristic was  common in these imaging methods,  Therefore other methods like Whole body MRI which was radiation free was used and is important in pediatric radiology.

Objective: To determine the role of Whole body MRI in staging and follow up of pediatric patients with lymphoma.

Methods: A 6-month Retrospective study was conducted on 71 patients who underwent Whole body MRI for Lymphoma (from October 2016 to March 2017) in the Radiology Department of The Children’s Hospital  Lahore. Studies were performed at 1.5T Philips Medical system. Coronol T1W,STIR and, DWI sequences acquired and reconstructed with Mobiview technique.

Results: Out of 71 patients, 62(87.3%) were biopsy proven Hodgkin disease and 9 (12.7%) were Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. Out of 46 patients for follow up of HD, 42 (59.25%) had complete resolution on end of treatment WBMRI, 2(2.8%)  had no response to treatment, and 2  had progressive disease. Among 7 patients who were followed up for NHL, 4 (5.6%) had complete resolution, 2(2.8%) had no response to treatment and 1 (1.4%) had progressive disease.

Conclusion: Whole body MRI had been successfully used as a radiation free modality in management of lymphoma for staging and assessment of treatment response.