Application progress of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors

Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is the most common mesenchymal tumor of the gastrointestinal tract. It can be classified as benign, malignant potential undetermined and malignant according to their biological behaviors. Early diagnosis, accurate staging and therapeutic response evaluation have an effect on the clinical decision-making and prognosis. Those factors used to be assessed by traditional imaging techniques, such as CT, EUS and MRI. While ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT, combining the advantages of both anatomic information from CT and functional information from PET, plays a considerable role in the diagnosis, staging, clinical decision-making, response evaluation, prognosis and recurrence detection of G 1st. Consequently, ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT will be helpful to guide the personalized treatment of G 1st. This review introduces the application progress of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT in G 1st. (authors)