Role of Positron Emission Tomography in Various Aspects of Pharmacy

Abstract

Researchers at various centres throughout the world are applying positron emission tomography (PET) to the study of in vivo metabolic process. PET is an imaging modality, which is a noninvasive diagnostic technique, in which radioactive tracers are used to measure the anatomical distribution and kinetics of specific biochemical processes. This is a quantitative approach towards the measurement of pharmacokinetics of labelled drugs and assessment of their effect on the metabolism by using radio pharmaceutical labelled with positron emitting radionuclides as ¹¹C, ¹³N, ¹⁵O and ¹⁸F. Since the dose required is very little, so PET provides cost effective predictive toxicology data and information on the metabolism and mode of action of drugs before the drug is in phase I. This paper presents a review to the applications of PET, especially in the field of drug design and development.