Tomographie par émission de positons et cancers digestifs

[Use of PET for staging, treatment evaluation, and follow-up in esophageal cancers]

FDG-(18F) PET can now be usually included in the treatment strategy of esophageal cancers for the pretreatment staging in operable tumours or for the diagnosis of recurrence. PET is also a good tool in conformal radiation therapy for improving the target coverage to treat the metabolic target volume or the biological target volume. Furthermore, PET seems to be interesting for evaluation of tumour response and could modify the treatment strategy after neoadjuvant chemotherapy or concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy. New radiotracers could allow advances in biological and molecular tumour delineation and contribute to change in treatment strategy based on functional and biological imaging.