Roles of PET/CT in Evaluating Gallbladder and Hepatobiliary Tumors

Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) as a marker of exogenous glucose utilization, has been used for detecting and characterizing various malignant lesions using whole-body PET-CT imaging. FDG PET has an important role in evaluating biliary malignant tumors by differentiating tumors and detecting unsuspected distant metastasis, and therefore, providing suitable patient management. But FDG PET has a high false negative rate for infiltrating cholangiocarcinoma, and also a high false positive rate for acute inflammation. A wise use of FDG PET is required in a variety of clinical settings considering such values and limitations of FDG PET.