PET-CT with any of various radiotracers is better than conventional MRI at showing the boundaries and necrotic tissue of brain tumors and other gliomas. However, MRI is better than any flavor of PET-CT at showing the tumors’ basic anatomical structure, making the MR scans essential to initial presurgical planning.

When evaluating histological types of lung cancer, a combination of SUVmax and serum tumor markers can significantly improve diagnostic accuracy, according to a new study.

Younger Alzheimer’s patients have disproportionately more tau pathology on PET-CT imaging than older patients who are similarly symptomatic, according to a small multicenter European study. The authors suggest defective tau proteins alone can predict disease onset and progression, while later-developing Alzheimer’s likely owes to a confluence of contributing factors.

Researchers have demonstrated the ability of a novel PET radiotracer to aid prostate-cancer imaging and suggested it shows promise for doing the same with other cancers.

Many pediatric cancer survivors initially evidence no functional signs of chemotherapy damage only to develop serious organ problems months or years later. With this common vexation in mind, Stanford University researchers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital have piloted a surveillance protocol using PET/MR to find chemo-induced injuries lurking in the brain, heart and bone in a single imaging session.

When otherwise normally functioning adults with pronounced sleep problems and a weakened sense of smell also have two imaging biomarkers—reduced dopamine activity on SPECT and Parkinson’s-type pattern expression on FDG-PET—they’re probably headed for full-on Parkinson’s disease.

Amyloid PET scans changed clinical care management in some 67.8 percent of 3,979 patients with mild cognitive impairment who are enrolled in the IDEAS study led by the Alzheimer’s Association and managed by the American College of Radiology and ACR’s Radiology Imaging Network. 

German researchers have shown that a new small-molecule radiotracer can work with PET, and PET alone, to image blood clots in multiple anatomic regions and regardless of where they formed.