A brief overview of common radiopharmaceuticals for detection of infection/inflammation in nuclear medicine

Inflammation comprises a heterogeneous category of disease with multiple clinical conditions and basically includes infection, acute inflammation, and chronic inflammation. One of the concerns for clinicians is the differentiation between tumor tissue and an inflammation site which significantly influences the treatment decisions. Recent progresses in nuclear medicine through the introducing of novel radiopharmaceuticals based on SPECT and PET, have been very promising in improvement of the specific differentiation between these two pathologies. In this review, the nuclear medicine approaches for the diagnosis of infection/inflammation, the differentiation between infection and inflammation, as well as the exclusion of tumor tissue, will be discussed.