New Concepts for Assessing Global Organ Function and Disease Activity Based on Combined PET and Structural Imaging Techniques

This review is intended to discuss ways in which global and regional organ function may be assessed by using modern tomographic imaging methods. In addition, we discuss using 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET to monitor treatment response in various tumors as well as quantification of tumor burden in the entire body. We have selected FDG as a model that can also be adopted for other PET radiotracers. The merits of advanced quantitative measures for disease activity assessment in cancer and other disorders will also be addressed.