Positron Emission Tomography, or PET scan, is a nuclear imaging approach used to measure the metabolic activity in tissue cells. The digital information acquired from a PET scan will indicate whether the cell in query has a standard, excessive or decreased metabolism. The results from PET scans only determine anomalies within the space of the physique that was scanned. While the knowledge obtained from a PET scan alone is beneficial in diagnosis, the results fail to produce anatomical images. Today, most state-of-the-art imaging centers have combined the PET scan with a CAT scan to construct vivid 2-D and 3-D pictures with exact visualization. We provide our radiologists with the most accurate PET/CT images available anyplace. We use a sixty four Slice PET/CT scanner that permits PET and CT pictures to be captured at totally different slice thicknesses for more accurate analysis and greater attenuation correction.
A health care skilled referred to as a nuclear medication technologist or radiologic technologist does the test. This person is educated to do PET scans and certified to use the scanner. A doctor who focuses on imaging exams will read your scan and decide what it means. This physician is a nuclear medicine physician or a radiologist.
PET can be used in pre-clinical studies using animals, the place it permits repeated investigations into the same topics. This is particularly valuable in most cancers analysis, because it results in an increase within the statistical high quality of the data (subjects can act as their own control) and substantially reduces the numbers of animals required for a given examine.
You should advise your physician if you’re pregnant or suppose you may be pregnant. If you’re breast-feeding it’s possible you’ll be advised to express enough milk to feed your baby for the first six hours after the scan. This is not because there shall be radiation within the milk. It is because a mother shouldn’t be holding the newborn closely during the time the radiation is in her body. Your hospital should advise you on the precautions to take.