INVITED COMMENTARY Clinical Usefulness of FDG PET in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer

Well-differentiated thyroid cancer is recognized as be-ing one of the most curable of all neoplasms. This low mortality is attributed to effective surgical resection of the primary tumor, subsequent 131I ablation or therapy, and more sensitive methods of detecting disease. Recurrent dis-ease detection has been aided by thyroglobulin (Tg) and recombinant thyroid-stimulating hormone (rTSH), which in combination simplifies the process of detecting recurrent tumor. FDG PET appears to be effective in aiding the clinician in determining recurrence of disease as is de-scribed in the article by Schlüter et al. (1). The advent of FDG PET in the clinical arena is most welcome for most nuclear medicine practitioners, but its application in thyroid cancer evaluation deserves special attention because this is where our current practice has its greatest diagnostic an