Evaluation of thoracic tumors with 18F-fluorothymidine and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography.

Study Objectives: 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is the most widely used positron emission tomography (PET) imaging probe used for the diagnosis, staging, restaging, and monitoring therapy response of cancer. However, its specificity is less than ideal. A new molecular imaging probe (18F-deoxyfluorothymidine [FLT]) has been developed that might afford more specific tumor imaging.

Conventional imaging and 2-deoxy-2-[(18)F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography for predicting the clinical outcome of patients with previously treated Hodgkin's disease.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the ability of 2-deoxy-2-[(18)F]fluoro-d-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) to predict the clinical outcome of previously treated patients with Hodgkin's Disease (HD).

Patients And Methods: Thirty-two patients were studied with PET within a median interval of 5.2 months after treatment.

Cardiac pacemakers and central venous lines can induce focal artifacts on CT-corrected PET images.

Unlabelled: PET/CT imaging can be associated with focal artifactual (18)F-FDG uptake introduced by metallic implants or contrast agents. It is unknown whether cardiac pacemakers or permanent central venous catheters can also result in such artifacts.

Methods: Twenty-seven patients with permanent central venous lines (13 men and 14 women; mean age +/- SD, 53.

Indirect monitoring of endogenous gene expression by positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of reporter gene expression in transgenic mice.

Purpose: Repetitive imaging with microPET of endogenous albumin gene expression by using transgenic mice in which the Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 thymidine kinase (HSV1-tk) reporter gene is driven by the albumin promoter (AL-HSV1-tk).

Methods: Transgenic mice were imaged repeatedly on a microPET scanner with approximately 200 microCi of 9-[4-[18F]fluoro-3-(hydroxymethyl)butyl]guanine (FHBG) (a substrate for HSV1-TK enzyme). Four transgenic mice were monitored for body weight, serum albumin, and imaged at the end of each of three dietary phases (17%, 0%, and 25% protein diet).

FDG-PET imaging in lung cancer: how sensitive is it for bronchioloalveolar carcinoma?

While characterization of lung lesions and staging of lung cancer with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) is an established clinical procedure, a lower diagnostic accuracy of FDG-PET for diagnosis and staging of so-called bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (BAC) has been reported. Therefore, the accuracy of PET for diagnosing and staging of BAC was investigated. We studied 41 patients eventually found to have adenocarcinoma with a bronchioloalveolar growth pattern who were referred for characterization or staging of lung lesions with whole-body FDG-PET between January 1998 and March 2001: there were 11 males (27%) and 30 females (73%), with a mean age of 66.

The impact of PET on the management of lung cancer: the referring physician's perspective.

Unlabelled: (18)F-FDG PET is a molecular whole-body imaging modality that is increasingly being used for diagnosing, staging, and restaging cancer. The objective of this study was to determine referring physicians' perspectives on the impact of (18)F-FDG PET on staging and management of lung cancer.

Methods: A questionnaire was sent to the 292 referring physicians of 744 consecutive patients with known or suspected lung cancer who were evaluated with PET.