Usefulness of nuclear imaging for infectious diseases specialists

Nuclear imaging could be helpful for infections diseases specialists in search for bone or joint and endovascular septic foci (with or without foreign body) but also for various metastatic infectious locations and for exploring fever of unknown origin (F.U.O.), especially in HIV-infected patients. In this paper, the interest of 'conventional' scintigraphic methods (labeled leukocyte and gallium scintigraphy) and positron emission tomography coupled with fluorodeoxyglucose (F.D.G.-PET) for the diagnosis of endovascular infections (especially those associated with foreign body) and some opportunistic diseases in HIV-infected patients (especially those presenting central nervous system involvement and F.U.O.) will be discussed. Then other potential areas of isotopic investigations will be briefly listed; some of them, including bone and joint infections and F.U.O. in the general population, will be presented in details in other papers in this issue. (author)