A brief overview of novel approaches to FDG PET imaging and quantification

The widespread implementation of hybrid FDG PET/CT worldwide has brought about a paradigm shift in the use of diagnostic imaging-molecular imaging combining morphological and functional data is now at the forefront of patient management in many clinical settings, not only for initial diagnosis, staging, monitoring of response to treatment and detection of recurrence, but also for prognostication and disease characterization. Although developments have focused particularly on the qualitative visual analysis of images, FDG PET allows elaborate quantification, which should be explored much more in the future and ideally standardized worldwide. In this brief overview, we outline the state of the art of novel and quantitative approaches to FDG imaging, i.e. standard uptake value, partial volume effect and partial volume correction, multiple-time-point imaging, assessment of global disease burden and PET/MRI, all of which we expect to see evolving as powerful tools in the coming years and enhancing sensitivity and specificity in variety of clinical settings, in which FDG PET imaging has not yet shown its full potential. © 2014 Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.