How a PET Scan Works and What Does it Do?

Position Emission Tomography, also known as a PET scan is a type of nuclear medicine imaging which uses radioactive materials, called radiopharmaceuticals or radiotracers to diagnose/treat heart diseases and other abnormalities within the body. This radionuclide imaging is usually non-invasive. When the radiotracer is put into the body and starts to accumulate in an area of the body, and then gives off energy in the form of gamma rays, which is detected by a device called a gamma camera, also known as a PET scan. Devices work together in order to determine and measure how much of the radiotracer an area or an organ in your body has absorbed.  It then gives off special imaging offering details of the function and the structure of the organs and its tissues. A PET scan measures vital body functions such as the blood flow, oxygen use, glucose metabolism, to help evaluate the normality or the abnormality of organs and tissues.

PET scans are used and performed to: 

A PET scan of a male with lung cancer. The sector
that is light yellow, are the dense tissues that carry
cancer cells. Which can easily be detected by the
PET scan.

•        Detect types of cancer
•        Determine whether the cancer has spread throughout the body
•        Assess the effectiveness of a treatment plan, such as cancer therapy
•        Determine if the cancer has made a come back
•        Measure the blood flow to the heart muscle
•        Evaluate brain abnormalities such as tumours, memory disorders, seizures and/or other central nervous system disorders
•        Determine effects (benefits/risks/cons) of a surgery or diseases
•        To map normal human brain and heart function.

     APPEARANCE

     
 A PET scan is a large, tunnel shaped scanner. That consists a thin cushion on which the patient lie their on. It then gets slide into the tunnel, which then captures 3D pictures of the body.  When the detector rings, it refers that the machine is tracing the discharge of power from the radioactive material inside the body and it allows a representation of the body to be captured. That image is sent to a computer that is connected to the PET scan. Then doctors or other specialists can then analyze the scans in order to figure out if any interesting activities are occurring within the patients body.Such as the image shown above, that shows that the patient has lung cancer. 








BIBLIOGRAPHY

Radiology A.C. (May 24, 2011). Positron Emission Tomography – Computed Tomography. In RadiologyInfo.org. Retrieved November 2, 2011, from http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=pet#part_five.

Scott, P. (no date). Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Imaging. In Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Facility. Retrieved November 2, 2011, from http://sitemaker.umich.edu/pet.chemistry/positron_emission_tomography.

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