PET imaging is sensitive enough to detect cancer cells in lymph nodes smaller than one centimetre. Other imaging technology may not recognize these tumours until they are large, perhaps two or more months later. It's my belief that PET is going to become one of the greatest modalities in imaging and in medicine.
Cancer is an area where it appears to have made a major contribution.
We could detect infection inflammation with this technique better than any other existing modality. We can look at cardiac problems and brain function in an exhaustive way. The list could go on. The tracer, which is sensitive to the increased glucose metabolism observed in malignant tumour cells, generated points of white light on the PET scans, representing areas of active tumour. Malignant disease was confirmed through surgical biopsies in 24 of the 28 patients, and PET accurately predicted the presence or absence of malignant disease in 22.