title: Applications of PET-CT in patients with esophageal cancer.
abstract: Although esophageal cancer is not among the common cancers as prostate, lung,     breast, or colon malignancies, it has an exceedingly high mortality rate, with     its incidence close to the cancer-specific mortality. Currently, the only     potentially curative treatment is surgery. Unfortunately, surgical treatment is     extensive and may have significant morbidity and mortality related with it.     Given these facts, selection of patients who are amenable to surgical treatment     is of utmost importance. Conventional morphology based cross-sectional imaging     modalities are extremely helpful for pre-surgical evaluation and follow-up of     these patients, however, they have very wellknown limitations. Positron emission     tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is a relatively new, highly promising     molecular imaging technique which may overcome some of the fundemental     limitations of these conventional cross-sectional modalities in the pre-surgical     evaluation and follow-up of these patients. In this review, we evaluated the     applications of PET-CT in patients with esophageal cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Abdominal Imaging and Interventional Radiology Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. alidevrim76@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Ali Devrim
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Karaosmanoğlu
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Blake
mesh_terms: D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D059248:Chemoradiotherapy / Q000379:methods; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D016629:Esophagectomy / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging / Q000379:methods; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D016896:Treatment Outcome