How We Read Oncologic FDG PET/CT

Abstract

18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT is a pivotal imaging modality for cancer imaging, assisting diagnosis, staging of patients with newly diagnosed malignancy, restaging following therapy and surveillance. Interpretation requires integration of the metabolic and anatomic findings provided by the PET and CT components which transcend the knowledge base isolated in the worlds of nuclear medicine and radiology, respectively. In the manuscript we detail our approach to reviewing and reporting a PET/CT study using the most commonly used radiotracer, FDG. This encompasses how we display, threshold intensity of images and sequence our review, which are essential for accurate interpretation. For int..