PET and PET/CT A Clinical Guide, 2nd edition

PET and PET/CT is the second edition of a book that deals with both oncologic and nononcologic applications of positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/computed tomography (CT). This is a compact, softcover handbook that should be of immense help to radiology and nuclear medicine residents, fellows, and staff physicians alike. This book will be useful for oncologists, neurologists, and cardiologists as well.

The textbook is divided into four main core sections. These cover Basic Science, Clinical Basics, Oncologic Applications, and Non-Oncologic Applications. Each section is then subdivided into chapters.

The Basic Sciences portion of the book deals amply with the underlying physics of PET/CT scanners and radiochemistry and biology of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). Chapter 3, “The role of glucose and FDG metabolism in the interpretation of PET studies” provides a good visual imagery of breakdown of glucose/FDG from time of injection to cell entry, in addition of easy to understand explanation of GLUT receptor function.

The Clinical Basics section covers topics such as patient preparation, especially in diabetics and imaging times postbiopsy, radiation, and chemotherapy. Chapter 6, “Normal variants and benign findings,” has excellent points of discussion of ventricular and papillary muscle uptake in the heart. However, a more detailed discussion on cross-cerebral diaschisis would have been more helpful. There is a good demonstration of the “flip-flop” phenomenon of treated disease and new lesions with appropriate illustrations. Other important topics discussed included the use and validity of standardized uptake values (SUV), differences between SUV max vs. SUV mean and when such quantitative data are valuable. The importance of PET/CT is discussed amply.

The section discussing the interpretation of FDG PET studies is particularly useful for physicians who are in training or embarking in the interpretation of PET and PET/CT for the first time. This chapter is well organized and explains in a simple fashion the different components of the PET/CT exam, the importance of each, the importance of correlative imaging, and the reporting of these exams. Pitfalls are also discussed in this section.

The introduction to the Clinical Basics section includes a brief description of the “The levels of evidence for clinical indications.” These are graded from A through D and are applied on the following clinical sections when discussing each indication. This is great feature that will help the ordering physician and the interpreting radiologist to keep clinical applications in perspective.

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Grading Key

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PET and PET/CT A Clinical Guide, 2nd edition

Grading Key

Further Reading

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