ABSTRACT
The heightened awareness of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), coupled with the availability of advanced technology to measure secreted proteins, improved immunohistochemistry, and the parallel increase in the use of advanced imaging techniques, has significantly contributed to the increasing incidence of NETs [1–3]. However, early detection of NETs remains a clinical challenge, particularly in patients with no clinical symptoms. Additionally, sensitive detection of NETs is hindered by the small size and slow growth of these tumors, causing delays in the diagnosis, which is associated with the high incidence of metastatic disease at initial presentation. Surgical resection has been the established curative treatment in localized disease, to some extent in advanced stages. Preoperative imaging strongly contributes to patient care for determining the extent of disease, localization of unknown primaries, lesion characterization, treatment planning, and subsequent follow-up. Because of diverse tumor properties and clinical behavior, the disease presentation is varied in individual patients. In this chapter, the different nuclear imaging techniques and tracers for the imaging of NETs are discussed.
