Clinical practice guidelines for the utilization of positron emission tomography/computed tomography imaging in selected oncologic applications: suggestions from a provider group.

Purpose: Positron emission tomography, combined with computed tomography (PET/CT) has provided clinicians with useful information regarding the diagnosis, initial staging, restaging, and therapy monitoring of malignancies since the beginning of the current century. Our intent here is to identify the critical steps in clinical workups and follow-up, in the true outpatient clinical setting of a freestanding imaging center, for utilization of PET/CT in four different cancer types.

Methods: The four most common reasons for referrals to our facility were identified by reviewing two years of referral data.