Positron emission tomography in the COVID-19 pandemic era

Chentao Jin; Xiaoyun Luo; Shufang Qian; Kai Zhang; Yuanxue Gao; Rui Zhou; Peili Cen; Zhoujiao Xu; Hong Zhang; Mei Tian

doi:10.1007/s00259-021-05347-7

Positron emission tomography in the COVID-19 pandemic era

Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2021 Nov;48(12):3903-3917. doi: 10.1007/s00259-021-05347-7. Epub 2021 May 19.

Authors

Chentao Jin^#^{1

2

3}, Xiaoyun Luo^#^{1

2

3}, Shufang Qian^{1

2

3}, Kai Zhang⁴, Yuanxue Gao^{1

2

3}, Rui Zhou^{1

2

3}, Peili Cen^{1

2

3}, Zhoujiao Xu^{1

2

3}, Hong Zhang^{5

6

7

8

9}, Mei Tian^{10

11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 88 Jiefang Road, Zhejiang, 310009, Hangzhou, China.
² Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China.
⁴ Laboratory for Pathophysiological and Health Science, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan.
⁵ Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 88 Jiefang Road, Zhejiang, 310009, Hangzhou, China. hzhang21@zju.edu.cn.
⁶ Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. hzhang21@zju.edu.cn.
⁷ Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China. hzhang21@zju.edu.cn.
⁸ College of Biomedical Engineering & Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. hzhang21@zju.edu.cn.
⁹ Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. hzhang21@zju.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 88 Jiefang Road, Zhejiang, 310009, Hangzhou, China. meitian@zju.edu.cn.
¹¹ Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. meitian@zju.edu.cn.
¹² Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China. meitian@zju.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a major public health problem worldwide since its outbreak in 2019. Currently, the spread of COVID-19 is far from over, and various complications have roused increasing awareness of the public, calling for novel techniques to aid at diagnosis and treatment. Based on the principle of molecular imaging, positron emission tomography (PET) is expected to offer pathophysiological alternations of COVID-19 in the molecular/cellular perspectives and facilitate the clinical management of patients. A number of PET-related cases and research have been reported on COVID-19 over the past one year. This article reviews the current studies of PET in the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19, and discusses potential applications of PET in the development of management strategy for COVID-19 patients in the pandemic era.

Keywords: COVID-19; Molecular imaging; Positron emission tomography (PET); SARS-CoV-2.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Humans
Pandemics*
Positron-Emission Tomography
SARS-CoV-2
Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Grants and funding

81761148029, 21788102, 32027802 and 82030049/National Natural Science Foundation of China