Radiohalogenated carbohydrates for use in PET and SPECT

Radiohalogenated carbohydrates have been of significant interest to the Nuclear Medicine community since the success of 2-Deoxy-2-fluoro-glucose (FDG)/positron emission tomography (PET) to measure glucose metabolic rates in humans. This review of this important class of compounds will be written in two parts, and will concentrate on the chemistry. The first part will cover the development of FDG, the many attempts to synthesize other radiohalogenated PET and SPECT analogs, and future prospects of a SPECT analog. The second will cover the synthesis of other radiohalogenated carbohydrate compounds such as nucleosides, where the halogen is located on the sugar rings, as potential imaging or therapeutic agents. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.