Positron emission tomography imaging in evaluation of cancer patients

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a diagnostic imaging technique that has progressed rapidly from being a research technique in laboratories to a routine clinical imaging modality. The most widely used radiotracer in PET is Fluorine18-fluorodeoxyglucose (F18-FDG), which is an analogue of glucose. The FDG uptake in cells is directly proportional to glucose metabolism of cells. Since glucose metabolism is increased many fold in malignant tumors PET has a high sensitivity and a high negative predictive value. PET with FDG is now the standard of care in initial staging, monitoring the response to the therapy, and management of lung cancer, colonic cancer, lymphoma, melanoma, esophageal cancer, head and neck cancer and breast cancer. Other indications of PET like bone tumor, ovarian cancer and cancer of unknown primary (CUP) has also been discussed in brief. The aim of this review article is to review the clinical applications of PET in various malignancies and only limited number of important studies will be discussed for this effort.