Current Landscape and Emerging Fields of PET Imaging in Patients with Brain Tumors

Abstract

The number of positron-emission tomography (PET) tracers used to evaluate patients with brain tumors has increased substantially over the last years. For the management of patients with brain tumors, the most important indications are the delineation of tumor extent (e.g., for planning of resection or radiotherapy), the assessment of treatment response to systemic treatment options such as alkylating chemotherapy, and the differentiation of treatment-related changes (e.g., pseudoprogression or radiation necrosis) from tumor progression. Furthermore, newer PET imaging approaches aim to address the need for noninvasive assessment of tumoral immune cell infiltration and response to immunotherapies (e.g., T-cell imaging). This review summarizes the clinical value of the landscape of tracers that have been used in recent years for the above-mentioned indications and also provides an overview of promising newer tracers for this group of patients.