Current Methods to Define Metabolic Tumor Volume in Positron Emission Tomography: Which One is Better?

• Published in: Nuclear medicine and molecular imaging Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 5 - 15
• Main Authors: Im, Hyung-Jun, Bradshaw, Tyler, Solaiyappan, Meiyappan, Cho, Steve Y.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.02.2018; Springer Nature B.V; 대한핵의학회
• Subjects: Cardiology; Image segmentation; Imaging; Measurement methods; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolism; Nuclear Medicine; Oncology; Orthopedics; Positron emission; Radiation therapy; Radiology; Review; Tomography; Tumors; 방사선과학; Tumor; Segmentation; Metabolic tumor volume; Positron emission tomography; F-fluorodeoxyglucose; 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose
• ISSN: 1869-3474; 1869-3482
• DOI: 10.1007/s13139-017-0493-6

Numerous methods to segment tumors using 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET) have been introduced. Metabolic tumor volume (MTV) refers to the metabolically active volume of the tumor segmented using FDG PET, and has been shown to be useful in predicting patient outcome and in assessing treatment response. Also, tumor segmentation using FDG PET has useful applications in radiotherapy treatment planning. Despite extensive research on MTV showing promising results, MTV is not used in standard clinical practice yet, mainly because there is no consensus on the optimal method to segment tumors in FDG PET images. In this review, we discuss currently available methods to measure MTV using FDG PET, and assess the advantages and disadvantages of the methods.