Advantages of 18 F FDG-PET/CT over Conventional Staging for Sarcoma Patients

The effective management of patients with sarcomas requires accurate diagnosis and staging. Imaging, such as ultrasonography (US), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are the most freqently used methods for the detection of the lesion location, size, morphology and structural changes to adjacent tissues; however, these modalities provide little information about tumour biology. MRI is a robust and useful modality in tumour staging of sarcomas, however metabolic-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/ computer tomography ( 18 F–FDG PET/CT) provides greater accuracy to overall staging in combination with MRI [ 1 ]. The advantages of 18 F–FDG PET/CT method compared with CT and MRI is that it provides a whole body imaging, maps the viability of the tumour or the metabolic activity of the tissue. Additionally, PET detects the most agressive part of the tumour, demonstrates the biological behaviour of the tumour and therefore has a predictive value. Little data ara available on the role of 18 F–FDG PET/CT in the management of sarcomas. The present manuscript aims to provide a review of the major indications of 18 F–FDG PET/CT for diagnosis, staging, restaging and monitoring response to therapy and to compare its usefulness with the conventional imaging modalities in the management of patients with sarcomas.