Lung cancer and schwannoma — the pitfalls of positron emission tomography Câncer de pulmão e schwannoma — as armadilhas da tomografia por emissão de prótons

Imaging studies play an important role in the tumor-node-metastasis staging of lung cancer, particularly in the evaluation of tumor size/extent and regional lymph node involvement. There is a learning curve for interpreting positron emission tomography (PET) findings; PET allows the estimation of the metabolic activity of a lesion, therefore facilitating the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant disease, as well as the determination of the extent of malignancy. When used in the study of lung cancer, PET can give false-negative results in cases of decompensated hyperglycemia, small lesions, or lesions with low metabolic activity, among others.