Preoperative staging of non-small-cell lung cancer with positron-emission tomography

Positron-emission tomography (PET) appears to be more effective than CT imaging for detecting non-small-cell lung cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. This was the conclusion of a study of 102 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. PET imaging was more accurate than CT imaging in detecting metastatic cancer and it detected metastatic cancer in 11 patients whose metastatic cancer had not been detected by other methods. Following PET imaging, 42 patients were diagnosed with more advanced cancer than their doctors had suspected, and 20 were diagnosed with less severe cancer.