Table 1.

Metabolic variables investigated (1- scan1, 2- scan2)

Abbreviation	Explanation	Derivation
SUV max	The single liver lesion with the highest SUVmax value
∑SAM	Summation of all existing lesions SAM values	∑SAM = SAM1 + SAM2 + SAMn…
NSAM	∑SAM normalized to the background	$\text{NSAM}=\frac{\sum \mathrm{SAM}}{\text{background}}$
TLG	Product of MTV (metabolic tumor volume) and SUV mean	TLG = SUV mean × MTV
∆SUVmax	The difference between SUVmax values	SUVmax2 – SUVmax1
∆SAM	The difference between ∑SAM values	∑SAM2 - ∑SAM1
∆NSAM	The difference between ∑NSAM values	∑NSAM2 -∑NSAM1
∆TLG	The difference between TLG values	TLG2 - TLG1
∆SUV%	The percentage change of the SUV max value	$\frac{\text{SUVmax}2-\text{SUVmax}1}{\text{SUVmax}1}\mathrm{x}100$
∆SAM%	The percentage change of the SAM value	$\frac{\mathrm{SAM}2-\mathrm{SAM}1}{\mathrm{SAM}1}\mathrm{x}100$
∆NSAM%	The percentage change of the NSAM value	$\frac{\mathrm{N}\mathrm{SAM}2-\mathrm{N}\mathrm{SAM}1}{\mathrm{N}\mathrm{SAM}1}\mathrm{x}100$
∆TLG%	The percentage change of the TLG values	$\frac{\mathbf{TLG}\mathbf{2}\mathbf{-}\mathbf{TLG}\mathbf{1}}{\mathbf{TLG}\mathbf{1}}\mathbf{x}\mathbf{100}$