Duarte S, Afonso C, Marques B, et al. - Researchers aimed at determining the predictive value of interim response evaluation by PET (iPET) in progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients (pts). They identified a total of 335 pts diagnosed with DLBCL who were uniformly treated with R-CHOP/R-CHOP-like protocols (6-8 cycles); 41% of these (n = 138) underwent iPET, 52% were male; the median age was 63 years old (24-86). When early response evaluation by iPET was considered, 73% (n = 101) of the pts were identified as iPET- and 27% (n = 37) as iPET+. Higher proportion of iPET+ pts was observed in correlation with ECOG-PS > 1, advanced stage disease (AdS), B symptoms (BS), increased lactate dehydrogenase, raised β2-microglobulin, extranodal involvement and International Prognostic Index (IPI) > 2. In DLBCL, iPET positivity is noted to be an independent predictor of poorer PFS and OS, even after adjusting for prognostic factors such as age, AdS and intermediate/high IPI score. Furthermore, iPET displayed a higher specificity and negative predictive value, suggesting iPET to be a valuable tool for early assessment of response in DLBCL, particularly of primary refractory DLBCL.