PET in genitourinary tract cancers.

Genitourinary (GU) tract cancers comprise a variety of tumors, which includes some of the most common malignancies in men and women. As a result of the importance of GU neoplasms and the success of positron emission tomography (PET) in imaging and staging cancer, PET with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has been used to depict and stage ovarian, cervical and testicular cancers. The early success of FDG PET in imaging GU tumors is tempered by the fact that some neoplasms of GU origin do not accumulate sufficient FDG for successful imaging. As a result, alternative agents, such as [11C]choline and [11C]acetate, have been used to image prostate cancer and may have utility in bladder cancer, while other PET agents are currently under active evaluation for this and other GU neoplasms. In this paper, we review the current literature and our experience in role of PET in imaging cancers of the GU tract.