Wednesday 3 September 2014 

Speaker: Paul Marsden (Kings College, London)


Title: "Current Challenges and Opportunities in Positron Emission Tomography" 

Abstract: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is now a mainstream clinical 
imaging technique, its main applications being in the management of patients 
with cancer. Whole body images of the distribution of pharmaceuticals 
labelled with positron-emitting radionuclides, notably the glucose analogue 
fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) labelled with 18F, are used to determine the stage 
of disease and monitor how it responds to therapy.  PET is also being widely 
used in the development of new cancer therapies where its use as an 
‘imaging biomarker’ to speed up and reduce the cost of clinical trials, 
and in research studies of brain function, the heart and other parts of 
the body. The basic principles and applications of PET will be outlined 
and current challenges and developments will be described with an emphasis 
on new detector technology.