title: ¹⁸F-fluoride PET and PET/CT in children and young adults.
abstract: 18F-fluoride PET/CT has been used for a wide variety of indications in children and young adults. Nearly all pediatric 18F-fluoride PET/CTs are performed to evaluate benign conditions. The most common indication is the evaluation of back pain in a wide variety of circumstances, including patients with sports injuries, scoliosis, trauma, and back pain after surgery. The high image quality of 18F-fluoride PET/CT can make it particularly useful for evaluating benign skeletal lesions such as osteoid osteoma and Langerhans cell histiocytosis. Quantitative assessment of bone turnover with 18F-fluoride PET/CT may make it useful for assessing the skeleton in patients with metabolic bone diseases, eating disorders, and avascular necrosis. There is little pediatric experience using 18F-fluoride PET/CT for evaluation of skeletal or soft tissue disease in childhood cancers.
authors.affiliation: Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, and The Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: frederick.grant@childrens.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Frederick D
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Grant
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001265:Athletic Injuries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D019567:Back Injuries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D001416:Back Pain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D005462:Fluorine Radioisotopes; D050723:Fractures, Bone / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012600:Scoliosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D005462:Fluorine Radioisotopes; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals
keywords: (18)F-fluoride PET; (18)F-fluoride PET/CT; Back pain; Benign skeletal lesions; Child abuse; Children; Pediatric musculoskeletal tumors; Pediatrics