Every patient is unique: Individualized therapies for non-Hodgkin'...( NEW ORLEANS La.Positron emission tom...),Health

NEW ORLEANS, La.Positron emission tomography (PET) could be an important tool for identifying non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients who are likely to respond well to treatment with 90 ibritumomab tiuxetan (IT)the first radioimmunotherapy treatment approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said researchers at SNM's 55th Annual Meeting. PET imaging allows practitioners to identify patients who could be treated, predict how they would respond and identify relapses early in patients who have follicular lymphoma, a common type of slow-growing lymphoma.

"This study illustrates how PET could be used to advance the goal of personalized medicineidentifying and targeting the right treatment for each individual," said Stefano Fanti, professor of nuclear medicine at the Policlinico S. OrsolaUniversit di Bologna in Bologna, Italy, and a researcher of this study. "The functional data provided by PET are essential for determining stages of cancer, detecting disease relapses and evaluating how patients respond to particular therapies. Our study clearly indicates that the next stepusing PET for predicting how patients will respond to treatmentcan be achieved."

In the United States, about 65,000 new cases of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are diagnosed every year. The number of new cases is on the rise, especially among older people and people whose immune systems are not functioning normally. Those at risk include people who have had organ transplants and those with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are a diverse group of cancers that develop in B or T lymphocytes, which are white blood cells that normally defend the body against bacteria and other pathogens. This group of cancers is actually the cause of more than 20 diseases, which have distinct appearances under the microscope and different clinical courses. Most non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are from B cells.

IT is a monoclonal antibody used in conjunction with
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