Table 1.

Main validated positron-emission-tomography (PET) tracers and their principal indications (based on [10,11]).

Tracer	Metabolic Process	Principal Oncological Indications
11C-Methionine	Amino acid transport and protein synthesis	Diagnosis and grading of brain tumors
18F-Choline (FCH)	Phosphatidylcholine metabolism and cellular membrane turnover	Biopsy guidance of prostate cancer recurrence/primary staging in high-risk prostate cancer before surgical procedures or planning external beam radiation
18F-Fluoro-Deoxyglucose (FDG)	Glucose metabolism	Diagnosis/restaging of lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, lymphoma, sarcoma, melanoma, head and neck cancer
18F-DOPA	Dopamine uptake and metabolism	Diagnosis of neuroendocrine tumors (NET)/documented NET metastasis in unknown primary
68Ga-DOTA-Peptides	Somatostatin receptors	Identification of primary tumor in patients with documented NET metastasis/assessment of NET disease extent before treatment
18F-Fluoroestradiol (FES)	Estrogen receptor	Status of tumor lesions to determine need for endocrine therapy in breast cancer
18F-Fluorothymidine (FLT)	Cellular proliferation and	Differential diagnosis between benign and malignant lesions/lymphoma staging and therapeutic evaluation
18-Sodium Fluoride (NaF)	Bone metabolism	Detection of bone involvement in tumors with elevated risk of bone metastasis
68Ga-Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA)	PSMA expression	Localization of tumor tissue in recurrent prostate cancer