Authors' objectives:

The objective of this report is to review, in light of the existing scientific evidence, the relative contribution of FDG-PET to clinical management of oncologic patients. This report aims to assess if this technology is able to provide a higher diagnostic accuracy compared to other available technologies, if it influences the patients' therapeutic management, and finally if its use can further benefit them.

Authors' recommendations: FDG-PET may be a useful complement to other imaging techniques in benign/malign differential diagnosis (DD) of a known lesion, relapse detection, pre-therapeutic "stadiage", after treatment extension study, after tumoral relapse detection or radiological suspicion or because elevation of TTMM, DD between relapse vs post-treatment changes. There are a growing number of publications about the applications of PET on oncology and the methodological quality in this area is also increasing. However, there is a need for adequately designed prospective studies with the aim of clarifying the role of PET in other oncological pathologies in which it has been impossible to find enough evidence because of the low prevalence of the condition or because the lack of studies.

Authors' methods: Systematic review

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.isciii.es/aets/

Year Published: 2001

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Spain

Organisation Name: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias

Contact Address: Instituto de Salud "Carlos III", Calle Sinesio Delgado 6, Pabellon 4, 28029 Madrid, Spain. Tel: +34 9 1 822 2005; Fax: +34 9 1 387 7841;

Contact Name: Luis M. Sánchez Gómez

Contact Email: luism.sanchez@isciii.es

Copyright: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias