A systemic review of PET and biology in lung cancer

Positron emission tomography imaging with 2-[fluorine-18]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose ((18)F-FDG) has been established as a significant molecular imaging technique in the management of lung cancer. However, (18)F-FDG accumulation is not specific, therefore several other radiotracers targeting hypoxia, cell proliferation and amino acid metabolism have been developed for the imaging of human cancers. This review summarizes the current data on the correlation between the underlying molecular biology and tumor PET accumulation in lung cancer.