A study of the use of (131)I-labeled tositumomab, preceded by an unlabeled tositumomab predose, for therapy of 76 previously untreated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients has been completed at the University of Michigan. Fifty-two of the 76 treated patients were imaged once during therapy with SPECT to assist in dosimetric estimation. In this article, the patient's average tumor dose, estimated by a hybrid method using that SPECT, is compared with the same statistic estimated by pretherapy conjugate views.
Methods: The SPECT activity-quantification procedure used 3-dimensional CT-to-SPECT image registration. Daily pretherapy conjugate-view images provided the shape of the time-activity curve for the hybrid dose estimation.
Results: With the hybrid method, the mean of the patient's average tumor dose over 8 patients using only their axillary tumors (162 cGy) was very significantly lower (P < 0.0001) than the mean over 47 patients using only their evaluated chest, abdominal, and pelvic tumors (624 cGy) for unknown reasons. Excluding axillary tumors as a best case for prediction, there still was considerable overlap in the distribution of a patient's average tumor dose over 38 patients who went on to a complete response (CR) and that from 9 patients who went on to a partial response (PR) using either method. However, a high value of the patient's average tumor dose was correctly associated with a CR for 15 of 16 patients (94%) with hybrid SPECT and for 9 of 12 patients (75%) with conjugate views. Also, the mean of the patient's average tumor dose for the CR patients was larger than the mean for PR patients; the P value was 0.18 with hybrid SPECT and 0.25 with conjugate views. A multiple logistic regression analysis combining the dose, tumor burden, and level of lactate dehydrogenase as explanatory variables for response did not yield statistical significance with either method.
Conclusion: Patients with evaluated tumors that receive the highest tumor radiation dose are most likely to achieve a CR. Dosimetry based on a combination of pretherapy conjugate views and intratherapy SPECT provides somewhat better correspondence between the patient's average tumor dose and his or her degree of response compared with dosimetry from pretherapy conjugate views alone. Statistical significance for the correspondence is not reached either with the dosimetric method or with either method in combination with the tumor burden and level of lactate dehydrogenase.