Tomografia por emissão de pósitrons - PET - em câncer de pulmão

Abstract

Estimations show more than 28,000 cases of lung cancer in both female and male people along 2010 and 2011, being the tabagism the major risk factor. Regarding survival, only a small number of diagnosed patients survive more than five years due to the fact that in most cases the diagnosis was made at random or late. The use of radiopharmaceuticals in Nuclear Medicine allows the early identification of many kinds of cancer employing three dimensional imaging obtained by isotope emission of positron. The positron emission tomography – PET – using 18-fluorodeoxyglucose allows the identification of lung cancer in a specific way through the metabolism of tumor cells, by having broad sensitivity and specificity, besides being very early. The PET/TC combination allows obtaining two imaging modalities from the same reference point, using metabolic information provided by PET imaging combined with computed tomography (CT) anatomic information, making it possible to identify metastases and malignant or benign tumors.