Can drug development and evaluation be improved by the use of positron
emission tomography (PET)? PET is now well established and many PET
centres participate in networks that warrant the quality of their
research. PET allows one to follow the effect of a drug on a variety of
patients' metabolic parameters. In addition, PET may be used to follow
the fate in vivo of a compound, allowing visualisation of its binding to
specific receptors and a direct study of the mechanism of drug action in
normal and pathological situations.
The book shows the fields in which PET offers new and unique information
for the development of drugs (conception, toxicity, pharmacokinetics and
metabolism, clinical research, and relations between clinical and
biological effects) and evaluates fields in which PET may shorten the
development time of drugs.
Audience: Professionals in the pharmaceutical industry in all areas of
drug discovery and pharmacology, pre-clinical testing, pharmacokinetics
and metabolism, clinical evaluation, registration and regulatory
affairs. Government health authority representatives who assess data and
documentation on new drug development and radiopharmaceuticals. Academic
experts concerned with any of these areas