[Sensitivity of PET with 18F-fluorodesoxyglucose in the diagnosis of neuroendocrine tumors of the lungs].

PET with 18F-FDG was administered to 46 patients with different morphological types of neuroendocrine tumors. The method appeared to be highly sensitive in the diagnosis of atypical carcinoids as well as neuroendocrine large-cell lung cancer and small-cell lung cancer. At the same time its imaging capabilities in the detection of typical carcinoids were limited. The sensitivity of PET in these patients was 66.7%. However, the absence of 18F-FDG hyperfixation in typical carcinoids had strong evidence in favor of conditional benign process.