PET Scan

[eriscatty]

Hi, My mother in law has just been diagnosed with lung cancer, thankfully in very early stage, she has a 'small tumor' on the lower part of her left lung but before the oncologist says what might be best for her she wants her to go for a PET Scan. Surgery is not an option for her as they say she can't afford to lose ant part of her lung as her lung function test was quite poor, she is 78 and has been a smoker for over 60 years continous. Can anyone please tell me what a PET Scan is?

[eriscatty]

Hi, thanks for that. My Mother - in - law had it done today, it took a couple of hours but she say's she feels ok apart from a little tired. All we have to do now is wait for the results of that to determine which treatment is best for her
regards

[Fernando Roque, MD]

Hi.  PET stands for Positron Emission Tomogography.  This is a kind of imaging procedure in which a radioactive form of glucose (fluorodeoxyglucose) is intravenously introduced into the body, and gets incorporated and metabolized by various body tissues.   As the glucose is metabolized, radiation is released and this is measured by the PET machine and reconstructed into a three dimensional image.  Tissues which are rapidly dividing, such as cancer cells, avidly take up glucose and show up readily in PET images, so this procedure is particularly useful in searching for cancer metastases which may be missed by the other more conventional imaging modalities.