Molecular Imaging of Proliferation and Glucose Utilization: Utility for Monitoring Response and Prognosis after Neoadjuvant Therapy in Locally Advanced Gastric Cancer

Background Metabolic imaging of gastric cancer is limited due to the 30% of primary tumors that are not 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) avid. In contrast, the proliferation marker 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT) has been shown to visualize also non-FDG-avid gastric tumors. In this study we tested whether FLT-positron emission tomography (PET) can improve the predictive potential of molecular imaging for assessing response to neoadjuvant therapy in gastric cancer compared with FDG-PET.