How PET-CT Scans Help to Identify Cancer Fast


Positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET-CT) are two powerful technologies that provide advanced information about a patient’s cancer, its location, anatomy, and activity within the body. Using PET-CT helps to target radiation to a precise cancer location without causing damage to surrounding healthy tissue. It also improves the accuracy of a patient’s diagnosis.

PET uses radioactive glucose known as Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) that is attached to fluorine-18. When cells absorb the glucose, the fluorine-18 breaks down and releases positrons and gamma rays. Since cancer cells are very active, they grow and multiply fast, taking in more sugar and emitting more gamma rays and positrons. That is why they glow brighter on PET-CT scans.

Here is how PET-CT helps in cancer detection:

·         PET-CT detects cancers such as breast cancer, lymphoma, and lung cancer easily.

·         It also helps to monitor the activity of cancer and track the diseased cells to know the progress and response of the patient to treatment.

·         PET-CT provides a lot of information that doctors use to determine the next cause of action or create a personalized treatment plan for each patient.

·         When the doctors find cancer through PET-CT, they will stage the cancer based on the size and extent to which it has spread. Low stage cancers are small, and still localized. They can be surgically removed or killed through radiation therapy. Advanced cancer has large tumors that have spread and will need a whole-body therapy such as chemotherapy.

·         Follow-up PET-CT scans can detect when treatment is not working and helps oncologists to administer different treatment to the patient.

The latest advances in PET-CT technology will provide more precise and accurate results in the diagnosis, staging, treatment and monitoring of cancer in patients. The hybrid scanner fuses images to give doctors a whole picture of the cancerous area. This helps to improve diagnosis accuracy and minimize the number of scans needed by a patient.
Location: Irving, TX, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Potential Side Effects of PET Scans

PET (positron emission tomography) scans help to deliver clear images of the biological functions of the body. They help to detect disease quicker compared to other imaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scans. A PET scan is a highly technological nuclear procedure that is very safe with no known potential side effects. The risks for this procedure apply only to a few cases. The procedure requires the patient to be injected with a radioactive tracer, which is compounded with low dose radioisotope and sugar.   The radioactive compound travels to the location being imaged while the patient rests still on the scanner for about 40 to 45 minutes. Once it reaches the cancer location, the tracer will emit signals, which will be translated into images by a computer. During cancer diagnosis, doctors want to look at all angles of the disease, including the possible causes and consequences. PET can be combined with other imaging tech...
Read more

Cancer in Children Can Now Be Detected Faster

Generally, children find it difficult to sit still for long periods. This can make it difficult for doctors taking MRI/CT scans to get accurate results through conventional methods, the scan time averages an hour or longer. However, researchers from Stanford have found a way to reduce the time to 30 minutes or less per region. As an added bonus, this method also picks up more details. The patients in this study had leukemia, lymphoma, or sarcoma. • Ten participants: 10 pediatric cancer patients (5 boys and 5 girls) who had undergone chemotherapy, at an average of 18.7 months prior underwent PET/MR imaging . Head and joint MRI were performed at the same time with PET data acquisition being done as well, along with cardiac imaging, with and without enhancing the images. • Scanning time greatly reduced: The technicians were able to complete the brain scans in just 27 minutes, the bone scans in a time of 15 minutes as well as manage to do cardiac imaging within 19 minutes, a drast...
Read more

Artificial Intelligence Can Detect Alzheimer’s Disease in Brain Scans Six Years before a Diagnosis

Using a common brain scan, researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to diagnose Alzheimer’s in its early stage, about six months prior to a clinical diagnosis. This allows doctors to offer treatment. Alzheimer’s has no known cure, but some drugs have been used in the recent years to help control the progression of this condition. However, to be effective these treatments should be given in Alzheimer’s early stages. This has motivated scientists to come up with ways of diagnosing the condition early. The study: A recent study by Jae Ho Sohn, UC San Francisco’s resident in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, combined machine-learning with neuroimaging to predict whether a patient would get Alzheimer’s disease when they faced a memory impairment for the first time. Sohn used a machine-learning algorithm with PET scans to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease in its early stage . Sohn fed the algorithm with images from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiativ...
Read more