%0 Journal Article %A Anwar, Hoda %A Sachpekidis, Christos %A Winkler, Julia %A Kopp-Schneider, Annette %A Haberkorn, Uwe %A Hassel, Jessica C %A Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss, Antonia %T Absolute number of new lesions on18F-FDG PET/CT is more predictive of clinical response than SUV changes in metastatic melanoma patients receiving ipilimumab. %J European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging %V 45 %N 3 %@ 1619-7089 %C Heidelberg [u.a.] %I Springer-Verl. %M DKFZ-2018-00120 %P 376 - 383 %D 2018 %X Evaluation of response to immunotherapy is a matter of debate. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the response of metastatic melanoma to treatment with ipilimumab by means of18F-FDG PET/CT, using the patients' clinical response as reference.The final cohort included in the analyses consisted of 41 patients with metastatic melanoma who underwent18F-FDG PET/CT before and after administration of ipilimumab. After determination of the best clinical response, the PET/CT scans were reviewed and a separate independent analysis was performed, based on the number and functional size of newly emerged18F-FDG-avid lesions, as well as on the SUV changes after therapy.The median observation time of the patients after therapy was 21.4 months (range 6.3-41.9 months). Based on their clinical response, patients were dichotomized into those with clinical benefit (CB) and those without CB (No-CB). The CB group (31 patients) included those with stable disease, partial remission and complete remission, and the No-CB group (10 patients) included those with progressive disease. The application of a threshold of four newly emerged18F-FDG-avid lesions on the posttherapy PET/CT scan led to a sensitivity (correctly predicting CB) of 84 %F PUB:(DE-HGF)16 %9 Journal Article %$ pmid:29124281 %R 10.1007/s00259-017-3870-6 %U https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/132432