The role of positron emission tomography in oncology and other whole-body applications.

Imaging and quantifying biochemical and physiological processes with PET clearly has major potential significance for all organ systems and many disease states. Although the full utility and potential of emerging new applications of PET in organs other than the heart and brain must be demonstrated in basic and clinical research studies, the rapidly accumulating aggregate experience in oncology in particular, and in other organ systems and disease states as well, indicates that PET is now truly becoming a modality of both clinical and investigative use for the body as a whole as well as for specific organ systems. Whole-body PET FDG imaging (Fig 9) illustrates the potential of biochemical imaging to map the distribution of cancer throughout the body. With the growing list of radiopharmaceutical and quantitative techniques applicable to cancer studies with PET, this field will continue to realize significant growth.