Comparison of Gallium-68 and Fluorine-18 imaging characteristics in positron emission tomography.

This review article compares PET imaging performance with Gallium-68 ((68)Ga) and Fluorine-18 ((18)F). The literature on this topic is scarce; hence in order to complete the published data, Monte Carlo calculations, as well as phantom measurements, were carried out. The qualitative and quantitative differences between (68)Ga and (18)F imaging were evaluated in terms of spatial resolution, sensitivity, contrast and activity recovery coefficients for both human PET systems and small animal PET scanners. The clinical and pre-clinical implications of these differences are discussed.