title: Positron Emission Tomography and Thyroid Cancer.
abstract: Follicular cell-derived differentiated thyroid carcinoma has a fairly good prognosis; however, the probability of recurrence is high, which increases the morbidity and mortality rates significantly. The most common agent used in patients with differentiated carcinoma for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes is radioiodine; however, it has been reported that thyroid tumor cells lose the ability to take up iodine because of de-differentiation. Positron emission tomography (PET) using 18-F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has proven useful in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma presenting serologic evidence of persistent disease but negative whole-body radioiodine scanning. There is an on-going debate on the role of PET in revealing the malignancy in thyroid nodules preoperatively. As a functional imaging modality, FDG-PET imaging may have some limitations because of its finite spatial resolution, especially in patients with minimal cervical adenopathy or small pulmonary metastasis; however its accuracy may improve using fusion imaging with either computed tomography (PET-CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (PET-MR imaging).
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, GATA Haydarpasa Training Hospital, Uskudar, Istanbul, Turkey. Electronic address: urhanm@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Muammer
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Urhan
authors.affiliation: Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, The Hospital of the University of Yeditepe, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ayse
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mavi
authors.affiliation: Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Spruce Street, 110 Donner Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Abass
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alavi
authors.affiliation: UO Medicina Nucleare, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Bologna Policlinico S.Orsola-Malpighi, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nanni
keywords: 18-F-fluorodeoxyglucose; Differentiated thyroid cancer; Positron emission tomography