PET/MRI applications in lung cancer

1157Objectives: 1. Comparison between PET/CT and PET/MRI in detecting distant metastases of lung cancer 2. Review of the potential advantages of PET/MRI compared with PET/CT in assessment of patients with lung cancer 3. Highlight the limitations of PET/MRI in lung cancer assessment Abstract: Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, causing high morbidity and mortality, and is under active study through use of positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI). Lung cancers are divided into non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC) subtypes. The treatment and prognosis is greatly influenced by tumor type and stage at diagnosis. MRI has been investigated as a technique for whole-body cancer staging, providing high soft tissue contrast and the potential for multiparametric tissue characterization through diffusion-weighted and dynamic contrast-enhanced sequences. The primary tumor detection rate of PET/MRI is of interest to clinicians managing patients with lung cancer. It is hypothesized that small lung nodules may be harder to visualize on PET/MRI compared to positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) based on the known differences between CT and MRI. Conversely, lung cancer has tendency to metastasize to the brain, adrenal glands, and bone marrow, which are all organs/tissues where MRI may perform better than CT. Therefore, MRI can detect metabolically inactive or minimally active metastases that are ...
Source: Journal of Nuclear Medicine - Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Tags: Educational Exhibits Source Type: research