F-18 FDG Positron Emission Tomography Demonstration of Pulmonary Carcinoid

Abstract
Although experience with positron emission tomography (PET) using F-18 FDG for imaging pulmonary carcinoid tumors is limited to date, uptake is usually much lower than expected for lung carcinoma or metastatic adenocarcinoma, or it is not present at all. On a routine chest radiograph, a 74-year-old woman with intraductal breast carcinoma was discovered to have a new right middle lobe nodule. The nodule was intensely hypermetabolic on F-18 FDG PET and was therefore believed to be a metastasis in this nonsmoking patient; however, at wedge resection, the nodule proved to be a primary pulmonary typical carcinoid tumor.