Recent applications of nuclear medicine in diagnostics (I part)

Introduction: Aim of this review is to describe the recent applications of nuclear medicine techniques in diagnostics, particularly in oncology. Materials and methods: We reviewed scientific literature data searching for the current role of tomographic nuclear medicine techniques (SPECTand PET) in oncology and summarized the main applications of these techniques. Results: Nuclear medicine techniques have a key role in oncology allowing early diagnosis of many tumours, an accurate staging of disease and evalutation of treatment response. Hybrid SPECT/CT and PET/CT imaging systems now provide metabolic and functional information from SPECTor PETcombined with the high spatial resolution and anatomic information of CT. The most frequent applications of SPECT/CT in oncology concern thyroid tumours, neuroendocrine tumours, bone metastases and lymph node mapping. Furthermore the evaluation of many tumours may benefit from PET/CT imaging. Discussion: The recent development of new radiopharmaceuticals and the growth of hybrid tomographic devices, such as SPECT/CT and PET/CT, now permits molecular imaging of biologic processes at the cellular level to improve both the diagnosis and treatment of many tumours.