[Positron-emission tomography (PET)--basic considerations].

A PET installation is a technically complex system composed essentially of two parts. The first consists in isotope production and synthesis of labeled biochemical compounds, the second in measuring the distribution of radioactivity in the body with the PET camera and the generation of image data. The specific advantage of PET lies on one hand in the use of positron emitters that are isotopes of ubiquitous elements in biologic matter, i.e. exact analogs of biomolecules can be produced and utilized and on the other hand quantification is possible. (= enable quantitative...?) Theoretically there are no limits for the synthesis of radioactive compounds and the method therefore provides unlimited test designs. The short half-life of the employed isotopes is advantageous for radioprotection reasons but the production of labeled compounds necessitates a cyclotron accelerator and a special laboratory for the handling of radioactive compounds rendering the production of the test substances relatively expensive. Measurements take place in a PET camera with a large number of coincidence detectors. The best available cameras have a spatial resolution of 5 mm in all three axes with an axial window of about 15 cm diameter. Evaluation of PET images is done in a qualitative way by superposition on anatomic images (CT, MRI) by image fusion. Quantitative determinations require elaborate computer modeling.