RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Oncologic PET/MRI, Part 1: Tumors of the Brain, Head and Neck, Chest, Abdomen, and Pelvis
JF Journal of Nuclear Medicine
JO J Nucl Med
FD Society of Nuclear Medicine
SP 928
OP 938
DO 10.2967/jnumed.112.105338
VO 53
IS 6
A1 Christian Buchbender
A1 Till A. Heusner
A1 Thomas C. Lauenstein
A1 Andreas Bockisch
A1 Gerald Antoch
YR 2012
UL http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/53/6/928.abstract
AB In oncology, staging forms the basis for prognostic consideration and directly influences patient care by determining the therapeutic approach. Cross-sectional imaging techniques, especially when combined with PET information, play an important role in cancer staging. With the recent introduction of integrated whole-body PET/MRI into clinical practice, a novel metabolic–anatomic imaging technique is now available. PET/MRI seems to be highly accurate in T-staging of tumor entities for which MRI has traditionally been favored, such as squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. By adding functional MRI to PET, PET/MRI may further improve diagnostic accuracy in the differentiation of scar tissue from recurrence of tumors such as rectal cancer. This hypothesis will have to be assessed in future studies. With regard to N-staging, PET/MRI does not seem to provide a considerable benefit as compared with PET/CT but provides similar N-staging accuracy when applied as a whole-body staging approach. M-staging will benefit from MRI accuracy in the brain and the liver. The purpose of this review is to summarize the available first experiences with PET/MRI and to outline the potential value of PET/MRI in oncologic applications for which data on PET/MRI are still lacking.