Abstract

Pediatric patients are among the primary patient groups where positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) is considered to have significant advantages, due to its ability to reduce radiation dose by up to 70-80%, high soft tissue resolution, and to obtain diagnostic MRI and PET images in a single anesthesia session. Due to the fact that pediatric patients are more sensitive to radiation compared to adults and are exposed to repeated imaging during follow-up, reducing the cumulative radiation dose in these patients through PET/MRI imaging is of great importance. Studies on hybrid PET/MRI in pediatric oncology patients have shown that, in addition to reducing radiation dose, PET/MRI provides diagnostic performance in lesion detection that is at least as good as PET/computed tomography, owing to its high soft tissue resolution. Therefore, when available, PET/MR is supported as the primary PET imaging modality in pediatric oncology. The aim of this review is to present the role of hybrid PET/MR imaging in pediatric oncology diseases in light of the literature.