Table 3.

Patient characteristics of the included studies

Authors, year of publication	Selection criteria (inclusion and/or exclusion criteria)	Total number of patients included in the article	Age (mean or median, and range)	Gender ratio (male: female)	Distribution of patients (type of tumor)
Daldrup-Link et al., 2001 [24]	Inclusion criteria: children and young adults with primary tumors that potentially metastasize to bone.	39	Mean age: 12.9 Range: 2–19 years	27:12	Ewing sarcoma, 20 Osteosarcoma, 3 Rhabdomyosarcoma, 3 Lymphoma, 2 Myelosarcoma, 1 Melanoma, 1 Langerhans cell histiocytosis, 9
Mazumdar et al., 2002 [26]	Inclusion criteria: small cell tumor in child, new or recurrent, MRI, reference imaging within 10 days Exclusion criteria: patients with newly diagnosed tumors who have had chemotherapy or radiation therapy for longer than 48 h before the imaging examinations, contraindications to sedation, a history of major allergic reaction to IV contrast material, and the presence of a cardiac pacemaker or intracranial vascular clips.	7 (5 newly diagnosed and 2 recurrences)	Mean age: 10.75 Range: 16–17 years	5:2	Ewing sarcoma, 2 (1 recurrent) Rhabdomyosarcoma, 4 (1 recurrent) Neuroblastoma, 1
Goo et al., 2005 [25]	Inclusion criteria: children who underwent WB-MRI and conventional oncological imaging within 15 days	36 (11 prior to chemotherapy, 25 after chemotherapy)	Median age: 3. 5 Range: 4–12 year	21:15	Rhabdomyosarcoma, 6 Lymphoma, 10 Neuroblastoma/ganglioneuroblastoma, 11/2 Germ-cell tumors, 3 Wilms tumor, 1 Hepatoblastoma, 1 PNET, 1 Small round cell neoplasm, 1
Kumar et al., 2008 [27]	Inclusion criteria: children and adolescents with histopathologically proven small-cell neoplasms who underwent WB-MRI, SSC and FDG PET/CT and iliac crest biopsy. Exclusion criteria: contraindications to sedation and the presence of a cardiac pacemaker or intracranial vascular clips	26	Range: 7–16 years	20:6	Ewing sarcoma/PNET, 11 Rhabdomyosarcoma, 5 Ganglioneuroblastoma, 1 Neuroblastoma, 8 Granulocytic sarcoma, 1
Krohmer et al., 2010 [28]	Inclusion criteria: children with suspicion or histological confirmation of malignant disease (lymphoma or solid malignant tumors); a maximum age of 18 years; at most 14 days between PET and WB-MRI, at least one conventional cross-sectional imaging examination, and no therapeutic action related to the malignant disease (e.g. chemotherapy). Exclusion criteria: patients without conventional cross-sectional imaging examinations and patients with suspicion or diagnosis of recurrent malignant disease	24	Mean age: 14 5/12 Range: 5–18 years	14:10	Hodgkin lymphoma, 11 Ewing sarcoma, 5 Osteosarcoma, 3 Follicular lymphoma, 1 Fibrosarcoma, 1 Rhabdomyosarcoma, 1 Alveolar sarcoma, 1 Langerhans cell histiocytosis, 1

FDG ¹⁸F–fluorodeoxyglucose, MRI magnetic resonance imaging, PET positron emission tomography, PNET primitive neuroectodermal tumour, SSC xxx, WB-MRI whole-body magnetic resonance imaging