title: PET/CT and occult primary tumors.
abstract: Within the past 5 years, F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT has become one of the more frequent imaging modalities in the management of patients with cancer of unknown primary origin. FDG PET/CT detects more sites of metastasis than other modalities, and in 20% to 40% of cases it discloses the site of the primary tumor. Its exact role is yet to be defined because of a lack of prospective clinical trials comparing the performance of PET/CT with conventional anatomic imaging modalities. This article reviews the available literature, attempts to place PET/CT using F-18-labeled FDG in clinical perspective and compares the combined modality with conventional anatomic imaging technologies.
authors.affiliation: Division of Diagnostic Imaging, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. dpodoloff@di.mdacc.tmc.edu
authors.forename: Donald A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Podoloff
mesh_terms: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D009382:Neoplasms, Unknown Primary / Q000175:diagnosis*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18