Case studies in PET.

In recent years primary care providers have been increasingly called on to broaden their management of patients, particularly in their role as gatekeepers to reduce healthcare costs. Obviously a wide spectrum of specialty involvement exists, ranging from the classic family practitioner managing all of the common diseases and referring challenging cases to specialists, to the internist with a background and interest geared toward handling more specialized neurologic, cardiac, or oncologic diseases. Whatever the case, primary care providers can have a great impact on diagnosis and management of illness by consulting with the radiologist about the use of the emerging technology of positron emission tomography (PET).