[The therapeutic impact of PET-FDG scanning in broncho-pulmonary cancer].
BACKGROUND
Because of the expected high performances of scintigraphic scans with [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) not only in diagnostics and but also in therapeutic impact, especially in thoracic oncology, there are a lot of French nuclear medicine departments which will soon be equipped with a positron emission tomograph (PET).


METHODS
The Nuclear Medicine Department of the Hôpital d'Instructions des Armées du Val-de-Grâce, Paris, led a retrospective study among physicians interested in 338 FDG-PET exams performed between may 2000 and march 2002 in order to compare its own results with international literature concerning four indications for lung cancer: pulmonary nodule or mass malignancy diagnostic, lung carcinoma extension evaluation, therapeutic efficiency, recurrence suspicion.


RESULTS
There seems to be no divergence, regarding limitation induced by the not exhaustive analysis of the retrospective study: more than every two FDG-PET exam highly influenced the effective therapy.


CONCLUSIONS
That is why clinical FDG-PET has to be widely developed to investigate lung cancer.
Blondet
C
C
Service de Médecine Nucléaire, Hôpital d'Instruction des Armées du Val-de-Grâce, Paris, France. cyrille.blondet@chru-strasbourg.fr
Vaylet
F
F
Cochet
A
A
Bonardel
G
G
Mognetti
T
T
Maszelin
P
P
Gaillard
J F
JF
Foehrenbach
H
H
D001984:Bronchial Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000628:therapy*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires