Critical Role of 18F-Labeled Fluorodeoxyglucose PET in the Management of Patients with Arthroplasty
The most frequent complications after arthroplasty are aseptic loosening and infection. It is often difficult to differentiate aseptic loosening from infection. The management of these two distinct clinical identities is quite different, however. Treatment of aseptic loosening usually requires one-step revision surgery, whereas treatment of infection requires antimicrobial therapy for an extended period before inserting a new prosthesis. Infection associated with arthroplasty is a serious complication and should be treated adequately before proceeding with a surgical intervention. PET with 18F-labeled fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has been proposed as an accurate technique for evaluating painful arthroplasty. This review addresses the applications of FDG-PET in such clinical settings. In addition, the potential of PET in the assessing the viability of bone grafts in revision arthroplasty is discussed.
aDivision of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 110 Donner Building, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
bDivision of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Corresponding author.
This article was previously published in PET Clinics 2006;1:99–106.
This article is partially supported by an N14 grant 5R01AR048241 (to AA).
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