Modern staging and utility of PET imaging in esophageal cancer management

Esophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer worldwide, and one of the most fatal diseases despite modern medical treatment. Because correct staging and surveillance of neoadjuvant therapy for esophageal cancer is mandatory for further treatment planning, choosing a modern imaging system is important. The development of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG-PET) has provided alternate means of tumor detection distinct from more conventional methods. This modality has extraordinary performance in detecting locoregional lymph node involvement and distant metastatic disease, and has been introduced as a powerful tool in many guidelines. However, some factors still lead to false-negative or -positive results, raising questions of its accuracy. This article discusses the clinical efficacy of PET in staging and surveillance of neoadjuvant therapy in esophageal cancer, comparing its accuracy with conventional imaging modalities.