Positron emission tomography: current status and future challenges

Positron emission tomography (PET) using fluorine-18-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) has made a major impact in clinical oncology in diagnosing, staging and restaging malignancy as well as in monitoring therapy response. Over the past decade, there has been an enormous growth in the scientific and clinical evidence supporting PET including recent important contribution from the Australian PET Data Collection Project. Since 2001, hybrid PET-computed tomography has also largely replaced PET alone systems with significant improvement in diagnostic accuracy. This review is a brief update on the current status of FDG-PET focusing on its oncologic applications.