Ricerc@Sapienza

There is an increased need to find non-invasive tools for early diagnosis and follow-up of infections. Nuclear medicine techniques may be used to diagnose, localize and evaluate the severity and the extent of infections before the occurrence of anatomical abnormalities. This review focuses on different approaches based on radiolabelled cells, peptides and antibodies or [ 18 F]FDG to image infective diseases in agreement with what is being jointly evaluated by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM).

Introduction: Radiolabelled autologous white blood cells (WBC) scintigraphy is being standardized all over the world to ensure high quality, specificity and reproducibility. Similarly, in many European countries radiolabelled anti-granulocyte antibodies (anti-G-mAb) are used instead of WBC with high diagnostic accuracy. The EANM Inflammation & Infection Committee is deeply involved in this process of standardization as a primary goal of the group.