Assessment of Therapy Response by Fluorine-18 Fluorodeoxyglucose PET in Infection and Inflammation.

PET has been extremely useful in evaluating the treatment response to chemotherapy or radiotherapy in patients with various neoplastic disorders. Little is known about the clinical usefulness of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET for assessing the treatment response, however, and few studies have been described in patients with inflammatory or infectious diseases. Most of the studies demonstrate a definite role of FDG-PET in the diagnosis and evaluation of the treatment response and disease activity in patients with vasculitis. In other inflammatory or infectious diseases, only a few studies with a limited number of patients have been published. Nevertheless, if we extrapolate the use of PET in inflammatory or infectious diseases, it can be assumed that PET may hold a promising future role in the follow-up of inflammatory or infectious diseases.