Positron emission tomography in lung cancer.

Recent advances in positron emission tomography (PET) with 2-deoxy-2-fluoro [F-18]-D: -glucose (FDG) has enabled not only the diagnosis and staging of lung cancer but also the prediction of its malignancy grade. However, FDG-PET has been known to have several pitfalls for imaging of lung cancer. For the effective clinical use of FDG-PET in lung cancer, we reviewed the pitfalls of using FDG-PET in the diagnosis of pulmonary nodules, semiquantitative analysis of FDG-uptake, N-staging, prediction of tumor aggressiveness, prognostic significance, and prediction of pathological response after chemoradiotherapy.