Introduction on PET: Description of Basics and Principles

Positron emission tomography (or PET) is a non-destructive imaging technique in nuclear medicine with several unique properties: high sensitivity, low radiation dose, possibility to correct data for attenuation and scatter (thus quantitative), radioactive labeling of natural substances or drugs with high specific radioactivities so that these can be used as tracers to monitor the pharmacokinetics of the non-radioactive compounds. Limitations are the spatial resolution of commercially available PET cameras, resulting in blurring or non-visibility of objects smaller than 1 mm, and the short half-lives of the commonly used PET radionuclides (< 2 h). Because of the combination of positron emitters, specific radiopharmaceuticals and quantitative data analysis, PET is frequently used to study the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of test drugs non-invasively in humans