Quantification of F18-FDG PET images in oncology

Summary	F18-FDG PET scans can play an important role at different stages of the management of patients suffering from cancer. Indeed, they can be useful for differntial diagnosis, disease staging, therapeutic follow-up, or recidive detection. FDG PET is currently essentially used for detecting primary tumors and metastases. However, it is thought that the precise measurement of FDG uptake in tumors, which is correlated with the glucose metabolism of the tumor, might help better characterize the tumors and determine very early whether a therapy is efficient or not. Our project therefore aims at determining the precision with which the FDG uptake can be measured in tumors from PET images, and involve three steps: Determining the impact of the different phenomena affecting PET imaging upon the measurements of FDG uptake from the PET images. Developping methods for processing the PET signal so as to reduce the bias in tumor FDG uptake measurements. Demonstrating the value of the quantification methods we will develop for the characterization of the tumors and/or for therapeutic follow-up.
Fundings	Scholarship granted by theAssociation pour la Recherche sur le Cancer
Publications
More...	Related projects : Contribution to the design and validation of the GATE PET and SPECT Monte Carlo simulator Creation of a SPECT and PET database for evaluation purposes
Contacts	Irène Buvat : buvat@imed.jussieu.fr Juliette Feuardent : feuarden@imed.jussieu.fr