CancerQuest | PET Scan: Imaging by Cancer Type

Below is a table describing the usefulness of ¹⁸F-FDG (¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose) PET scanning with repect to diagnosis, staging, prognosis, treatment planning and response to therapy for several cancer types.

Cancer Type	PET Scan Usage
Bladder	Not used for bladder cancer, because of 18F-FDG collects in the bladder and urinary tract making images very hard to interpret.
Brain	PET has limited use with brain cancer because normal brain tissue and cancerous tissue can have similar glucose uptake levels resulting in difficulty interpreting brain images. Other radiotracers are being investigated.
Breast	PET has shown great potential in diagnosis of primary and recurrent disease, staging, prognosis and response to treatment. But, PET is not as accurate as mammography for primary screening, so it will not replace mammography at this point.
Cervical	Limited role in the staging of cervical cancer, but may be useful in prognosis after treatment.
Colorectal	PET is useful in the diagnosis of recurrent colorectal cancer, with a sensitivity and specificity of 97% and 76%, respectively. There are other disorders of the bowel that cause increased uptake of FDG, causing image interpretation problems.
Endometrial	PET is able to detect recurrence during and after treatment with a sensitivity of 96-100% and a specificity of 78-88%.
Germ Cell Tumors	Use still in the early stages, but at this point it can effectively evaluate the presence of residual disease after therapy.
Head and Neck	PET is useful in diagnosis, assessment of response to treatment, prognosis and diagnosis of relapse. PET was found to be more sensitive than CT (94-100% for PET vs 77-91% for CT).
Lymphoma	PET is useful in detection of disease, with a higher sensitivity (94-100%) than CT (77-91%). PET is also useful in diagnosis, assessment of response to treatment, prognosis, and diagnosis.
Lung	PET scan is useful in diagnosis, staging, prognosis and radiotherapy. PET was found to be comparable to fine needle aspiration (FNA) for diagnosis
Melanoma	Not shown to be useful in primary staging. Can play a large role in diagnosis of relapse with a sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy all greater than 70%.
Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL)	PET is capable of staging intermediate and high-grade NHL and also may be able to help in predicting treatment response.
Oesophageal	PET was found to be more accurate than CT and ultrasound, PET 82% accuracy compared to CT and ultrasound 64% accuracy, in detection of metastatic disease. Also found to be more accurate in nodal staging and may be useful in prognosis.
Ovarian	PET is useful in providing information about staging, especially when combined with CT.
Prostate	Imaging with PET alone has not been useful in prostate cancer imaging, but other options are currently under research.
Renal	PET shows nothing promising in management of renal cancer, but has some limited ability to stage metastatic disease.
Thyroid	PET was found more accurate than MRI and CT in detecting metastasis, with a sensitivity of 82-95% and a specificity of 83-95%

All the information in this table was obtained from a review published in Clinical Oncology in 2007.⁽¹⁾

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