PET/CT and PET/MRI in Neurology: Infection/Inflammation

For more than a century, X-ray was the only available modality allowing observation of inner workings of the human body. Today, a new generation of imaging devices is probing even deeper and transforming medicine in the process. Indeed, recent advances in imaging technology such as CT scans, MRIs, SPECT, and PET scans and other techniques have had a major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear medicine techniques for imaging inflammation and infection have enormously expanded gaining importance in the diagnostic setting as well as for prognostic implication and management of treatment. This important clinical role relies on the ability of functional imaging to pinpoint different components and phases of inflammatory and infectious diseases beside the pure morphological anomaly generally depicted by the majority of radiological imaging procedures. Indeed, the use of nuclear medicine techniques allows in vivo histological characterization of inflamed and infected tissues and highlights cells and phenomena principally involved, thus allowing definition of tailored personalized treatment.