Preclinical Studies with Small Animal PET.

Because no effective cures are available for cutaneous malignant melanoma, early diagnosis and accurate staging are of the utmost importance in increasing patient survival. Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography is a functional imaging technique that has contributed to ameliorating surveillance of patients with melanoma. New PET probes are under evaluation, and many have been tried in in vivo imaging protocols based on the use of small animal PET and animal models of cutaneous melanoma. Those compounds are targeted to a-melanocyte-stimulating hormone receptor and to the intracellular biosynthesis of melanin, and all of them showed promising results.