About PET Scans

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a safe yet powerful diagnostic test that is making major improvements on the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Unlike computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which primarily examine anatomy, PET allows us to visualize body function. Because disease is a biological process and PET is a biological imaging examination, PET can detect and stage most cancers, often before they are evident through other tests. PET can also give physicians important early information about heart disease and many neurological disorders, like Alzheimer's.

PET imaging requires access to a cyclotron, which produces positron-emitting elements or radioisotopes (oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, fluorine, etc.). These radioisotopes can be easily incorporated into other chemical compounds including normal body components, like oxygen (used to image blood flow) or a drug (used to visualize brain chemical systems), to make a radiopharmaceutical.

Medicare now covers PET imaging for many cancer indications, such as lung, breast, colorectal, head and neck and esophageal cancer, lymphoma and melanoma. Coverage is also available for epilepsy, and heart disease.

PET Improves Patient Care

Before PET, if a patient had some shadow on his or her lung x-ray, a physician would not be able to tell if it were a benign or malignant lesion. The patient would need to undergo a needle biopsy or perhaps even have a portion of the lung removed to help determine if the lesion was benign or malignant. A malignant lesion would then involve additional CT scans and possibly more surgery. Now, thanks to PET, doctors are able to tell if a growth is benign or malignant without further testing, as well as if malignancies have spread to other areas.

PET in Oncology

Peer-reviewed literature supports and clinical data demonstrates that PET is effective in the diagnosing and staging of most cancers. The most dangerous aspect of cancer is how it spreads throughout the organ systems of the body. PET is able to inspect all organ systems of the body to search for cancer in a single examination. It can also be used after chemotherapy to prove that the cancer treatment has been effective.