title: Potential role of FDG PET/CT in evaluating patients with hepatic incidentalomas.
abstract: This review article is focused on the role of FDG PET/CT in diagnosing and characterizing hepatic incidentalomas. A large variety of unsuspected lesions can be detected in the liver both with ultrasound and CT performed for other reasons; the prevalence of liver incidentalomas increases in patients with chronic liver disease or preexisting oncologic history. The major challenge is to discriminate benign from malignant lesions. There is a large body of literature indicating that FDG PET/CT is a useful tool to this purpose even if it is unspecific (ie, it cannot differentiate a primary tumor from a secondary lesion). Occasionally, FDG PET/CT can be useful for biopsy guidance.
authors: From the Departments of *Nuclear Medicine, and †Surgery, Santa Maria della Misericordia Hospital, Rovigo, Italy; and ‡Department of Radiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.
authors: Gaia
authors: G
authors: Grassetto
authors: Maria Cristina
authors: MC
authors: Marzola
authors: Sotirios
authors: S
authors: Chondrogiannis
authors: Anna Margherita
authors: AM
authors: Maffione
authors: Lucia
authors: L
authors: Rampin
authors: Fabrizio
authors: F
authors: Galeotti
authors: Patrick M
authors: PM
authors: Colletti
authors: Domenico
authors: D
authors: Rubello
mesh_terms: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D033162:Incidental Findings; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000556:secondary; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18