[18F FDG PET-Applications in Oncology].

In the first part our intention was, essentially, to present the particularities of glucose tumoral cells metabolism, PET components, the synthesis of 18F FDG and the detection of unknown cancers. This second part makes reference about mainly types of tumors who benefit by FDG-PET indications. Clinical PET has a rapid growth because of its use in cancer diagnosis and management. According with published studies all over the world, the sensibility and specificity of FDG-PET, noninvasive method, is higher than that of the conventional methods like CT, IRM, ultrasonography. PET is en excellent detection method of most of common cancer types and depends not on the histological neoplasm type; the more aggressive is the tumor, more it will uptake the radiotracer. The cost is significant, so the indications must be very precise: evaluating the malignity of solitary pulmonary nodules, evaluating the recurrences of melanoma, colon cancer diagnosis, differentiation between recurrent brain tumor and radiation injury, differential diagnosis of the benign lymph and malign lymph nodes, staging of Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, evaluation the response to therapy. Because the PET images are difficult to interpret, appears the necessity of correlation with anatomic images: this was the fusion images beginnings (the PET and CT images combination); now the physiologic information has precise anatomic localization. The growing of this method is very probably, both using 18F FDG -thanks to its highly favorable physical characteristics- and other new radiopharmaceuticals. The clinical cases that illustrate the applications are investigated at CERMEP, Lyon, France.