ABSTRACT
Positron emission tomography (PET) is a n uclear imaging technique t hat p roduces imag es o f t he met abolic ac tivity o f li ving organisms b y me ans o f radioac tive la beling. I ntroduction o f a short-lived positron-emitting radiopharmaceutical is used to tag a sp eci c met abolic ac tivity t hat ca n subs equently b e imag ed noninvasively b y sp ecialized eq uipment. e radio-nucleotide that is administ ered contains a sp eci ed quantity of short-lived radioactively la beled c hemical subst ances t hat a re iden tical, o r closely analogous, to naturally occurring substances in the body. Radioactive labeling means that one atom in a molecule is replaced by a radioac tive T rojan ho rse, a radio-n ucleotide. A det ailed description o f t he radio isotope p henomenon is p resented in Chapter 41. S peci c exa mples o f t he radio-n ucleotides us ed in PET imaging are the following: 11C, 18F, 13N, and 15O.
