PET-Based Personalized Management in Clinical Oncology: An Unavoidable Path for the Foreseeable Future

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Molecular Imaging
• Personalized Medicine

Background:

• Clinical practice is shifting towards personalized management models for various disorders.
• Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is crucial for assessing tumors and nonmalignant conditions.
• PET-CT enables exploration of individual disease phenotypes, aiding personalized medicine decisions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically explore and define the role of PET-CT in personalized clinical practice for malignancies.
• To highlight the advantages of PET-based disease management in oncology.
• To emphasize the integration of molecular imaging with structural imaging for individualized treatment.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing traditional PET-CT applications for disease staging, restaging, and treatment response evaluation.
• Exploring tumor biology with FDG and novel non-FDG PET tracers (e.g., 68Ga-DOTA-TOC/NOC/TATE, 68Ga-PSMA, 18F-fluorocholine, 18F-fluoroestradiol).
• Integrating molecular imaging data with structural imaging for treatment planning, intervention precision, and prognosis.

Main Results:

• PET-CT facilitates adaptive treatment decisions by assessing disease extent and response.
• Novel PET tracers enable stratification for targeted therapies in various cancers (NET, prostate, breast).
• Multitracer PET imaging supports individualized disease management and selection of targeted treatments.

Conclusions:

• PET-CT is essential for personalized medicine in oncology, offering insights into disease phenotype and biology.
• Advanced PET tracers and multimodality imaging integration are key to stratifying patients and selecting targeted therapies.
• PET-CT enhances clinical decision-making, treatment planning, and prognosis forecasting in personalized cancer care.