TY - JOUR AU - Taralli, Silvia AU - Treglia, Giorgio AU - Giordano, Alessandro PY - 2012/01/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The emerging role of whole-body 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in patients with sarcoidosis JF - Italian Journal of Medicine JA - Ital J Med VL - 6 IS - 1 SE - Reviews DO - 10.4081/itjm.2012.21 UR - https://www.italjmed.org/ijm/article/view/itjm.2012.21 SP - 21-26 AB - <h4 id="absSec_1">Introduction</h4><p id="spar0005">The purpose of this article is to examine the emerging role of whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) with <sup>18</sup>F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in patients with sarcoidosis.</p><h4 id="absSec_2">Materials and methods</h4><p id="spar0010">We reviewed the literature on the use of FDG-PET in patients with sarcoidosis to identify how this technique is being applied in clinical practice.</p><h4 id="absSec_3">Results and discussion</h4><p id="spar0015">Our review shows that: 1) sarcoidosis is commonly associated with increased FDG uptake. Therefore, positive findings should be interpreted with caution when FDG-PET is being used to distinguish benign from malignant abnormalities; 2) FDG-PET seems to be a very useful molecular imaging method for staging sarcoidosis, identification of occult sites of involvement, guiding biopsy procedures, and monitoring patients' responses to treatment; and 3) in patients with sarcoidosis, the diagnostic accuracy of FDG-PET is superior to that of <sup>67</sup>Ga scintigraphy.</p> ER -