What, where and why: Exploring fluorodeoxyglucose-PET's ability to localise and differentiate infection from cancer

Abstract

Purpose of review To review the utility of FDG-PET imaging in detecting the cause of fever and infection in patients with cancer. Recent findings FDG-PET has been shown to have high sensitivity and accuracy for causes of neutropenic fever, leading to higher diagnostic certainty in this group. Recent advances in pathogen-specific labelling in PET to identify Aspergillus spp. and Yersinia spp. infections in mice, as well as differentiating between Gram-positive, Gram-negative and mycobacterial infections are promising. Summary Patients with cancer are vulnerable to infection and fever, and the causes of these are frequently unclear using conventional diagnostic methods leading to high morbidit..