Purpose. To study the prognostic value of the initial volumetric PET-biomarkers – the total metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and the total lesion glycolysis (TLG) – in classic Hodgkin's lymphoma (cHL) patients using an automatic method for pathological foci segmentation.

Material and methods. This retrospective study included 45 cHL patients with different stages who underwent staging with 18F-FGD PET/CT. Over an average follow-up period of 14 months from the baseline PET/CT, 36 patients remained in remission, 2 patients had refractory course, 7 relapsed.

The examinations were processed with automatic (multi-foci segmentation – MFS) method to obtain MTV and TLG using two fixed absolute thresholds (SUVmax ≥ 2,5 and SUVmax ≥ 4,0) and one relative threshold (41% of SUVmax).

Results. In subgroups with disease remission (n=36) and refractory course or relapse (n=9), there were no detected statistically significant differences between the mean of MTV and TLG (p>0,05).

In the univariate analysis, MTV parameter using a threshold of 41% of SUVmax correlated with progression-free survival. MTV and TLG with absolute thresholds didn’t show a significant correlation with the likelihood of relapse, as well as TLG at 41% of SUVmax.

Conclusion. The initial experience shows that in cHL patients, the correlation between baseline MTV parameter calculated with threshold of 41 % of SUVmax and progression-free survival was detected. Calculation of MTV with absolute thresholds did not reveal such a correlation.

At designed follow-up period, there were no statistically significant differences in baseline values of MTV and TLG between patient subgroups in remission and refractory course or relapse.