Current Osteoporosis Reports · Sep 14, 2024
PET/CT for the Opportunistic Screening of Osteoporosis and Fractures in Cancer Patients
By Park PSU, Werner TJ, Alavi A
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: In this review, we outline the different etiologies of osteoporosis in the oncologic setting and describe the basis for using PET/CT as screening tool for osteoporosis with a focus on the radiotracers [¹⁸F]FDG and [¹⁸F]NaF. RECENT FINDINGS: Osteoporosis is a condition commonly affecting cancer patients due to their age, cancer-specific treatment agents, and effects of cancer. In terms of the unifying mechanism, decreased ratio of osteoblast-bone formation to osteoclast-bone resorption is responsible for causing osteoporosis. PET/CT, a crucial metabolic imaging modality in the oncologic imaging, could be a useful tool for the opportunistic screening of osteoporosis. There are two approaches with which osteoporosis could be identified with PET/CT-using either the (1) CT- based or (2) PET- based approaches. While the CT-based approach has been used with [¹⁸F]FDG PET/CT, both CT- and PET-based approaches can be employed with [¹⁸F]NaF-PET/CT as [¹⁸F]NaF is a radiotracer specific for osteoblast activity.