The efficacy of treating tuberculin skin test (TST) positive, or interferon gamma release assay (IGRA) positive, contacts of tuberculosis (TB) cases to prevent progression to disease is well established. However the length of treatment, and the toxicity associated with the currently used regimens, means that the risk may outweigh the benefit and treatment completion rates are poor. In addition, no proven regimens are available for contacts of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases. Because as few as 2% of contacts develop active TB over 1 year and no surrogate markers are available, drug trials to assess novel treatments typically require thousands of subjects followed up for many years. (18F)-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computer tomography (FDG-PET/CT) may prove a useful surrogate for more targeted chemoprophylaxis as well as a means to rapidly evaluate novel prophylactic regimes in future studies.