Prospects and Clinical Perspectives of Total-Body PET Imaging Using Plastic Scintillators

•Total-body PET opens a new diagnostic paradigm with prospects for personalized disease treatment, yet the high cost of the current crystal-based PET technology limits dissemination of total-body PET in hospitals and even in the research clinics.•The J-PET tomography system is based on axially arranged low-cost plastic scintillator strips. It constitutes a realistic cost-effective solution of a total-body PET for broad clinical applications.•High sensitivity of total-body J-PET and triggerless data acquisition enable multiphoton imaging, opening possibilities for multitracer and positronium imaging, thus promising quantitative enhancement of specificity in cancer and inflammatory diseases assessment.•An example of dual tracer analysis, becoming possible with total-body J-PET system, could be a concurrent application of Food and Drug Administration–approved 82Rb-Chloride and [18F]FDG, allowing simultaneous assessment of myocardium metabolic rate and perfusion of the cardiovascular system. •Total-body PET opens a new diagnostic paradigm with prospects for personalized disease treatment, yet the high cost of the current crystal-based PET technology limits dissemination of total-body PET in hospitals and even in the research clinics.•The J-PET tomography system is based on axially arranged low-cost plastic scintillator strips. It constitutes a realistic cost-effective solution of a total-body PET for broad clinical applications.•High sensitivity of total-body J-PET and triggerless data acquisition enable multiphoton imaging, opening possibilities for multitracer and positronium imaging, thus promising quantitative enhancement of specificity in cancer and inflammatory diseases assessment.•An example of dual tracer analysis, becoming possible with total-body J-PET system, could be a concurrent application of Food and Drug Administration–approved 82Rb-Chloride and [18F]FDG, allowing simultaneous assessment of myocardium metabolic rate and perfusion of the cardiovascular system.