Positron-Emission Tomographic Scanning of Primary and Metastatic Breast Carcinoma with the Radio-Labeled Glucose Analogue 2-Deoxy-2-[18f]fluoro-D-Glucose

To the Editor: Currently, no single imaging technique reliably detects both primary and metastatic foci of breast cancer.^{1 2 3} We wish to report the feasibility of simultaneously imaging primary and metastatic breast cancer using a whole-body positron-emission tomographic (PET) scanning device. The whole-body PET scanner uses multiple rings of radiation detectors and computerized reconstruction algorithms to generate images of the in vivo distribution of radioactivity in a patient.⁴ In this case, breast-cancer imaging was achieved by determining in the vivo biodistribution of an intravenously administered cyclotron-produced Radio-labeled glucose analogue, 2-deoxy-2-[¹⁸F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG).⁵ A 58-year-old woman presented with a two-year history of. . .