Preclinical PET tracers for the evaluation of sarcomas: understanding tumor biology.

Sarcomas are rare tumors of mesenchymal origin. Sarcomas display significant histological heterogeneity, resulting in significant imaging heterogeneity. 18 F-FDG PET has is increasingly used for the evaluation, staging and surveillance of patients with sarcomas. 18 F-FDG PET maximum SUV has been shown to be correlated with sarcoma grade and overall survival. This has led to interest in alternative PET tracers to assess the biological characteristics of tumors and guide treatment decisions. Here we investigate novel PET/CT tracers used for the evaluation of sarcomas over the past 20 years and summarize what we have learned about sarcoma tumor biology from these studies.