PET - Positron Emission Tomography and Nuclear Medicine
What is PET?
Patient Having PET Scan
PET (or positron emission tomography) is a medical imaging tool which assists physicians in detecting disease. Simply stated, PET scans produce digital pictures that can, in many cases, identify many forms of cancer, damaged heart tissue, and brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and epilepsy. Technically, PET is a medical imaging technology that images the biology of disorders at the molecular level before anatomical changes are visible.
A PET scan is very different from an ultrasound, X-ray, MRI, or CT, which detect changes in the body structure or anatomy, such as a lesion (for example, a sizeable tumor) or musculoskeletal injury. A PET scan can distinguish between benign and malignant disorders (or between alive and dead tissue), unlike other imaging technologies which merely confirm the presence of a mass.
A PET scan can detect abnormalities in cellular activity generally before there is any anatomical change. A PET scan can, in many cases, identify diseases earlier and more specifically than ultrasound, X-rays, CT, or MRI.
PET can also help physicians monitor the treatment of disease. For example, chemotherapy leads to changes in cellular activity and that is observable by PET long before structural changes can be measured by ultrasound, X-rays, CT, or MRI. A PET scan gives physicians another tool to evaluate treatments, perhaps even leading to a modification in treatment, before an evaluation could be made using other imaging technologies.
Cascade Medical Imaging is now offering Sodium Fluoride Bone (NaF) scans through the NOPR. This technique allows for full body, 3 dimensional imaging of the skeletal system in patient with suspected bony metastatic disease. This technique is highly sensitive and specific for detecting both osteoblastic and osteolytic lesions within the bone. Ask about it today!
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Nuclear Medicine
What is Nuclear Medicine?
Nuclear Medicine is a medical specialty that uses substances or tracers called radiopharmaceuticals to diagnose and treat a variety of medical conditions.
Diagnostic:
Imaging is done using tracers that are attracted to certain physiologic processes within the body, such as phosphate compounds attraction to bone. These tracers are tagged to a radioactive substance, this is what is referred to as a radiopharmaceutical. The radiopharmaceuticals localize to specific organs or cell receptors within the body to give a picture of the function of that organ. In many cases functional changes can be detected long before structural changes occur allowing for earlier diagnosis and treatment. These radiotracers or radiopharmaceuticals are readily excreted out of the body as well as constantly decaying away, meaning the radiation dose to the patient is relatively low. Side effects to radiopharmaceuticals are very minimal or non-existent.
Therapeutic:
Certain radiopharmaceuticals can also be used to treat cancer. This is done by giving the patient a higher dose or a different type of the radioactive tracer that will destroy the tissue it concentrates in. This allows for a non-invasive and effective treatment. It can also allow for more thorough eradication of the cancer because it can be taken up by individual, microscopic cells that could otherwise be missed.
Hybrid (SPECT/CT) Imaging:
Recently Nuclear Medicine has made great strides in diagnostic quality thanks to hybrid imaging that utilizes low dose CT scanning. With this technology, Nuclear Medicine images can be fused or combined with CT to give a 3 dimensional picture of both anatomy and physiology on top of one another. This allows for more precise localization and greatly improved image quality. The CT scanner is attached to the nuclear medicine camera and utilizes extremely low doses, when compared to diagnostic CT. A typical SPECT/CT exam results in approximately a 75% reduction in the CT radiation dose as compared to conventional diagnostic CT imaging. CMI is excited to offer this new technology to Central Oregon.
