In January 2004, the Center for Gamma-Ray Imaging (CGRI), a research resource funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), hosted “The Workshop on Small-Animal SPECT” in Tucson, Arizona. Over 80 people from around the world attended this workshop, which included numerous short courses and contributed papers.
In 2003 we published Positron Emission Tomography: Basic Science and Clinical Practice. The aim of that book was to address what we perceived of as a lack, at the time, of a comprehensive contemporary reference work on the rapidly expanding area of positron emission imaging.
From the early 1970s to mid-1990s, positron emission tomography (PET) as a diagnostic imaging modality had been for the most part used in experimental research. Clinical PET started only a decade ago. 82 Rb-RbCl and 18 F-Fluorodeoxyglucose were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug administration in 1989 and 1994, respectively, for clinical PET imaging.
The development of Multislice (multidetector row) computed tomography (CT) have had a deep impact on the general use of CT. CT is now again being increasingly used as compared to other modalities, especially magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
The combination of functional metabolic information and anatomical data has been available since 2001, when the combined PET/CT scanner was introduced. This technology has had a significant impact on many medical disciplines, including cardiology and neurology, but undoubtedly the greatest impact has been in the field of oncological imaging.
PET-CT: A Case-Based Approach provides practical clinical examples of studies performed with FDG on a state-of-the-art dedicated PET-CT device. Detailed histories and correlative imaging findings are given in each case to demonstrate the level of detail required for image interpretation and the capabilities of this instrumentation.
Positron emission tomography (PET), a powerful research tool 20 years ago, has recently gained widespread application in oncology and is now a procedure clinically available on each continent. Despite the fact only a few PET centers are dedicated to children, data from Children’s Oncology Group indicate that virtually all children in North America have easy access to a PET center.
Medical imaging has undergone remarkable evolution over the past century. Since the discovery of the x-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1901, there have been many other important discoveries and technical developments that have culminated in our current sophisticated multi-modality imaging systems.
