Abstract
Recently, PET molecular imaging has been regarded as important as a practical and useful method for pharmacokinetics evaluation in order to improve the efficiency of new drug development. PET enables us to take direct or indirect measurements of several kinds of pharmacokinetic parameters in high sensitivity by imaging the radioactivity distribution in target organs and tissues and the status of interaction of a drug with a target molecule in vivo.
In this article we review the usefulness of PET molecular imaging in clinical pharmacokinetics evaluation, indicating concrete examples of application such as assessment of tissue distribution of drug labeled with positron emitter and evaluation of receptor occupancy using a radiolabeled ligand.
