OnCo
technologiesTechnologyStandard of care

FDG PET

FDG PET is the standard PET scan. A radioactive sugar shows which tissues are burning glucose fast, which most cancers do.

18F-fluorodeoxyglucose exploits the Warburg effect. Standard for staging and response in lymphoma (Deauville), lung, melanoma, head and neck, oesophageal cancer. Weak in prostate, low-grade neuroendocrine, mucinous, and some breast cancers, which is why target-specific tracers exist.

Schematic · not to scale
Detector ring · ¹⁸F-FDG (glucose) · 511 keV photon pair

How it works

FDG is taken up via GLUT transporters and trapped after phosphorylation by hexokinase.

Strengths
  • Universal availability
  • Decades of validation
Limitations
  • Non-specific: infection and inflammation are also hot
  • Brain background
  • Poor in indolent tumours

Latest papers

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Literature trend2,075 papers in the last 12 months+10% vs prior 12How this is computed
Latest papers · live from Europe PMC
Open in Europe PMC

Query for this technology: (TITLE:"FDG PET" OR ABSTRACT:"FDG PET" OR TITLE:"18F-FDG PET/CT" OR ABSTRACT:"18F-FDG PET/CT") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about FDG PET, not a curated reading list.

Connected

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Pages like this

not linked directly; found by shared links

cancers

4
Diffuse large B-cell lymphomaHER2-positive breast cancerHodgkin lymphomaMultiple myeloma

fronts

1
Imaging

technologies

3
Hypoxia-activated prodrugsPET (positron emission tomography)PET-adapted (response-adapted) therapy

institutions

5
German Hodgkin Study GroupInternational Extranodal Lymphoma Study GroupLYSA – The Lymphoma Study AssociationSociety of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular ImagingUniversity Hospital Southampton / Centre for Cancer Immunology

pathways

2
Cancer metabolismGlutamine addiction

terms

6
Deauville five-point scaleDeauville score and PET-adapted therapyHallmark: reprogramming cellular metabolismLugano classification / Ann Arbor stagingStandardised uptake value (SUV)Warburg effect

trials

2
PHERGainRATHL

pairings

1
Early FDG-PET response → chemotherapy omission (HER2+)

roadmaps

1
Molecular imaging roadmap: FDG → PSMA → FAP → antigen and immune PET

ideas

3
De-acidify the tumour so T cells can work in itFAPI PET as the workup for MCED positivesMap metabolic dependencies in the patient, not the dish