Overview of Positron-Emission Tomography Tracers for Metabolic Imaging

Abstract

Positron-emission tomography (PET) is a cross-sectional imaging technique that uses compounds labeled with positron-emitting radionuclides to measure the concentration and location of the radiolabeled compounds over time. PET has been used for a broad range of biomedical research and is used routinely in clinical patient care for oncologic, neurologic, and cardiac applications. PET has several properties that make this technique particularly well-suited for metabolic imaging as well as some important limitations. This chapter discusses key principles and applications of PET tracers for metabolic imaging in mammalian systems. Many of the first PET tracers developed for metabolic imaging were radiolabeled forms of naturally occurring products such as glucose and amino acids [1, 2]. Due to the wide range of metabolic PET tracers that have been developed, it is not possible to comprehensively cover this field in a single chapter. We focus primarily on small molecule PET tracers that participate in metabolic pathways and/or serve as markers for the activity of specific metabolic pathways that have been used in human imaging studies.