One Coin, No Need to Flip: Shared PET Targets in Cancer and Coronary Artery Disease.

OBJECTIVE: The purposes of this article are to review the common biologic features of cancer and coronary artery disease assessed with PET tracers, focusing on those already used in the clinic and those with translational potential, and to discuss the current value and expected contribution of PET in diagnosis, risk stratification, and treatment monitoring. CONCLUSION: PET using a wide variety of radiotracers enhances understanding of pathophysiologic changes shared by cancer and coronary artery disease, helps establish an accurate diagnosis, and aids in prognostic assessment and management decisions. It is likely that with the evolution of therapeutic strategies for blocking the development and progression of both diseases and with the introduction of novel, specific ligands in clinical practice, PET will play an ever stronger role in diagnosis, risk stratification, and monitoring of therapy.

FDG PET-CT: Need for Vigilance in Patients Treated with Bleomycin.

Bleomycin-induced interstitial lung disease is not a rare complication of treatment and may prove to be fatal if not suspected early in its course. As FDG PET-CT has become an essential clinical tool for interim and end-of-treatment response assessment in oncology, it is important that radiologists/nuclear medicine specialists be aware of the features of this potentially treatable condition so that treatment can be instigated during an early reversible phase before pulmonary damage has occurred. Herein, we report two cases of bleomycin toxicity featuring different patterns on the treatment-response assessment FDG PET-CT scan.

(18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in infected polycystic kidney disease.

A positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) study using (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) was performed in a 54-year-old female with polycystic kidney disease, fever, and abdominal discomfort. Cyst's infection was suspected, but CT and U/S findings were not specific to accurately depict pyocysts and guide surgical treatment. In PET/CT, both kidneys are enlarged with multiple cysts and little remaining parenchyma. There is intense focal or ring-shaped FDG uptake in cysts in the upper and lower poles of the left kidney indicative of active infection. There is also increased FDG uptake in para-aortic lymph nodes bilaterally. Hepatic and right renal cysts do not present increased FDG uptake. As this case illustrates, FDG PET/CT can be helpful for the precise localization of cyst infections in patients with polycystic kidney disease considered for surgical treatment.