An estimated 663,000 patient studies were performed using PET in Western Europe in 2008, reflecting a 21% increase from the 546,000 patient studies conducted in 2007, according to a new study conducted by healthcare consultants Medical Options of London.
The report also concluded that non-FDG studies accounted for only 3% of the total number of scans in Western Europe last year, adding that the routine clinical use of fluorinated compounds other than FDG is increasing.
Issues with the supply of technetium led some sites in 2008 to switch certain patients requiring bone scans to PET/CT using sodium fluoride. The use of alternative tracers is due exclusively to the availability of these compounds, the study noted.
Oncology studies comprised 94% of PET studies in Europe, with very few cardiology studies performed. Infection/inflammation applications showed the greatest increase.
The European PET studies were performed by 399 providers using PET or PET/CT scanners in fixed or mobile environments.
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![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
