Positron Emission Tomography

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a computer tomographic imaging technique which has traditionally been used in neurololgy and cardiology. More recently, however it has been used in oncology for imaging the biochemical or physiological properties of normal and pathological tissues in vivo. These biochemical pathways or physiological properties are imaged using various radiopharmaceuticals labelled with positron emitting isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine. Recent work at UCLA has developed the whole-body PET technique, which produces images of the entire body, allowing a complete survey of tumour foci in a single study. This text is an overview of PET in possible clinical applications in oncology.