Nuclear Medicine Imaging of Infections. Techniques, Acquisition Protocols and Interpretation Criteria

In the past decades, nuclear medicine has developed enormously for imaging infections and in many cases has become an indispensable diagnostic tool for clinicians. Nuclear medicine techniques can facilitate the investigation, in vivo, of different pathogenetic events occurring in the natural history of the diseases. This chapter talks about techniques for imaging inflammation/infection, cardiovascular infections, preimaging considerations and patient preparation, image acquisition protocols for white blood cells (WBCs) and antigranulocyte monoclonal antibodies (anti-G mAbs), and interpretation criteria for WBCs, anti-G mAbs, and fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). It provides lists of commercially available radiopharmaceuticals for imaging inflammation/infection, and experimental radiopharmaceuticals for imaging inflammation/infection, fungi and bacteria. Nuclear medicine techniques in most cases are complementary to radiological techniques and efforts are ongoing in the scientific community to define common diagnostic flow charts for effective diagnosis of infections, reducing unnecessary costs and optimizing available resources.