Objective To investigate imaging manifestations of CT and positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET)-CT using (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) in pulmonary mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma.

Methods CT and PET-CT imaging findings of 21 patients with pulmonary MALT lymphoma confirmed by pathological results were retrospectively analyzed, and the correlation between affinity of ¹⁸F-FDG and imaging findings was analyzed by Logistic regression analysis.

Results A total of 60 pulmonary lesions were found in 21 patients, including 22 consolidation-like lesions, 28 nodular or mass-like lesions, and 10 ground-glass lesions. A total of 12 cases were single lesions and 9 cases were multiple lesions. Among the patients with multiple lesions, 7 cases were bilateral and 2 cases were unilateral lesions. ¹⁸F-FDG PET-CT showed that 45 of the 60 lesions were hypermetabolic lesions and 15 were hypometabolic lesions. Logistic regression analysis showed that ¹⁸F-FDG affinity was correlated with morphology and diameter of lesions (P<0.01).

Conclusion The imaging manifestations of pulmonary MALT lymphoma are diverse, including nodular or mass type, pneumonic type and ground glass type. Most of them have ¹⁸F-FDG affinity that is related to tumor diameter and morphology.