Rationale and design of a prospective study on the first integrated PET/dual-energy CT system for staging and image-based radiation therapy planning of lung cancer

Background The aim of this prospective study is to investigate the diagnostic performance of integrated positron emission tomography (PET) /dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) imaging in determining the thoracic nodal status of patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the resulting impact on target volume delineation for radiation therapy planning.