Evolving Role of PET-Computed Tomography and PET-MR Imaging in Assessment of Musculoskeletal Disorders and Its Potential Revolutionary Impact on Day-to-Day Practice of Related Disciplines

摘要

With advancing technology and increasing availability of sophisticated hybrid imaging tools, there has been increasing use of PET-computed tomography (CT) and PET-MR imaging in daily clinical patient care as well as the research arena. It is therefore timely for us to bring together international experts on imaging of musculoskeletal disease using PET-CT and PET-MR imaging and provide up-to-date literature evidence on the recent development in these hybrid imaging techniques. As we all know, a major advantage of PET is its ability to depict the site of active metabolism. Therefore, foci of abnormal hypermetabo-lism secondary to malignancy, infection, and inflammation can be detected. By coupling this to high anatomical resolution of CT and MR imaging, we can ameliorate the major disadvantage of PET imaging.