Pet Applications For Staging And Restaging In Thoracic Malignancies

In the last 10 years, Fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan has been widely adopted in thoracic oncology, showing high accuracy in staging and restaging. The aim of this review was to focus on the results of PET scan use in the evaluation of thoracic malignancies. The literature search was performed on January 2015 in PubMed and Google Academic. The search was restricted to publications in English, using in the same string the word “PET” with different thoracic tumors. From 3000 papers initially selected, the irrelavant articles eliminated and then approximately 100 manuscripts were fully analyzed. In conclusion, positron emmision tomography/ computed tomography (PET-CT) has established itself as an important step in the evaluation of patients with thoracic malignancies. Further evaluation and come into use of newer PET tracers and simultaneous Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with PET (PET/MR) imaging will offer additional options in thoracic oncology in future.