Role of Fluorodeoxyglucose PET/Computed Tomography in Post-radiation Treatment Inflammatory Changes.

Authors

Ehsan Ranjbar, Tejas Bhogale, Sedra Abou Ali Mhana, Thomas Werner, Yucheng Chang, Abass Alavi

Published in

PET clinics. Oct 13, 2026. Epub Oct 13, 2026.

Abstract

Radiation therapy induces inflammatory changes in normal tissues that can persist for months and confound fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography interpretation, particularly when assessing for tumor recurrence. This review examines the pathophysiology, time course, and imaging characteristics of post-radiation inflammatory changes across major organ systems including pulmonary, head and neck, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, musculoskeletal, and cardiovascular sites. Key topics include the conformational pattern of inflammatory uptake matching the radiation field, limitations of standardized uptake value-based quantitative criteria, optimal timing considerations, common pitfalls in interpretation, and emerging strategies, including novel radiotracers and multimodality imaging for differentiating post-treatment inflammation from residual or recurrent malignancy.

PMID:
42869740
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 14 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.