title: PET/CT imaging of thyroid cancer.
abstract: Positron emission tomography (PET) is a highly sensitive, low invasive technology for cancer biology imaging. The role of F-18 FDG PET/CT in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) is well established, particularly in patients presenting with elevated Tg levels and negative radioactive iodine WBS. It has been demonstrated that F-18 FDG uptake represents less differentiated thyroid cancer cells or dedifferentiated cells and PET positive lesions are more likely to be resistant to I treatment. The uptake of F-18 FDG is related to tumor size, thyroid capsule invasion and histological variants with a poor prognosis. As in other cancers, early detection of recurrences improves outcomes and survival. I PET/CT can also be used to image the patients with DTC, similarly to I WBS. Compared with F-18 FDG PET/CT, its spatial resolution is only slightly degraded but increasing the imaging time reduces this difference. In addition, F-18 FDG PET/CT has been found helpful in the management of patients with anaplastic and medullary thyroid cancer. Other radiopharmaceuticals such as Ga-DOTATOC and F-18 DOPA may provide complimentary information to F-18 FDG PET/CT in the detection of recurrent thyroid cancer.
authors: Division of Nuclear Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors: Camila
authors: C
authors: Mosci
authors: Andrei
authors: A
authors: Iagaru
mesh_terms: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18