PET/CT in therapy evaluation of patients with lung cancer.
FDG-PET/CT is a well documented and widespread used imaging modality for the diagnosis and staging of patient with lung cancer. FDG-PET/CT is increasingly used for the assessment of treatment effects during and after chemotherapy. However, PET is not an accepted surrogate end-point for assessment of response rate in clinical trials. The aim of this review is to present current evidence on the use of PET in response evaluation of patients with lung cancer and to introduce the pearls and pitfalls of the PET-technology relating to response assessment. Based on this and relating to validation criteria, including stable technology, standardization, reproducibility and broad availability, the review discusses why, despite numerous studies on response assessment indicating a possible role for FDG-PET/CT, PET still has no place in guidelines relating to response evaluation in lung cancer.
Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Blegdamsvej 9, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Natasha Hemicke
NH
Langer
Tine Nøhr
TN
Christensen
Seppo W
SW
Langer
Andreas
A
Kjaer
Barbara Malene
BM
Fischer
D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000628:therapy*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed