Normal Variants and Effects of Aging on the Gastrointestinal Tract

The elderly constitute a significant proportion of patient population in most developed countries, and their numbers are expected to increase in the coming years. The number of clinical applications for PET and PET/CT continue to increase. Like other imaging techniques, there are a large number of variants and artifacts in PET and PET/CT, which can result in false-positive results. Understanding normal age-related changes that can lead to imaging variants and artifacts in structure and function of the human body is very important. This article reviews normal age-related variants and artifacts in the imaging appearance of the gastrointestinal tract.