Book excerpt: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a rapidly developing subspecialty of nuclear medicine which, in a very short space of time, has been shown to have a significant impact on patient management. This comprehensive and up-to-date clinical atlas arises out of the combined experience from two leading PET centres during the formative years of clinical application. It is presented as a series of `mini-lectures', illustrated by real-life case studies, clear concise teaching points and directions for further reading. In each section the authors have identified the key management issues in which clinical PET imaging can be used to good effect, selecting high-quality PET images to illustrate each important application, most especially in the field of oncology, but also in cardiology, neurology and psychiatry. They offer relevant clinical information on epidemiology, pathology and (in the case of cancer) staging methods in the chapter introductions. For each area of application, tabulated summaries of current clinical indications for PET scans and suggested algorithms are provided.