What is a Pet Scan? How does it work?

1. POSITRON
EMISSIONS
TOMOGRAPHY
PET SCAN

2. What is a Pet Scan?
• Nuclear 3-D imaging test that
uses a radioactive substance
called a tracer to look for
disease in the body.
• Shows how organs and tissues
are working at a molecular and
cellular level. Scan is non-invasive,
but does involve
exposure to ionizing radiation.
• Best known for its role in
detecting cancer imaging.

3. How Do Pet
Scans work?
• A small amount of a radioactive
sugar molecule, 18 fluoro-2-
deoxyglucose (FDG), is injected
into the bloodstream (can also be
inhaled as gas or swallowed in
pill form).
• A PET Scan is used to detect and
generate images that indicate
areas of high FDG uptake.
• Many cancers require more
energy than normal cells, and the
FDG tracer accumulates in these
cells.
• This allows cancers to be seen on
the Pet images as hot spots.

5. Pet scan of a patient showing wide
spread of cancer metastasis.
A 61-year-old woman with
metastasis of breast cancer to
the left supraclavicular lymph
node

6. Scan of a healthy
child's brain.
Scan of an abused
child’s brain

7. PET SCAN
COMMON USES

8. Conditions
• Epilepsy
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Dementia
• Cancer
• Heart Disease
• Medical Research

9. PET SCAN ADVANTAGES
• Unlike CT or MRI scans, PET
scans can measure cellular-level
metabolic changes
occurring in an organ or
tissue (early stage detection).
• CT’s and MRI’s cannot detect
changes until the disease has
already began to cause
changes or damage in the
structure of organs or tissues.

10. PATIENT COST & TIME
$3,000 to
$6,000
per scan
Takes 2
to 4
hours

11. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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12. REFERENCES
Joseph, U. A. (June 01, 2012). Positron Emission Tomography. Journal
of Nuclear Medicine, 53, 6, 1002-1003.
Kumar, R., Halanaik, D., & Malhotra, A. (January 01, 2010). Clinical
applications of positron emission tomography-computed
tomography in oncology. Indian Journal of Cancer, 47, 2.)
Politis, M., & Piccini, P. (January 01, 2012). Positron emission
tomography imaging in neurological disorders. Journal of
Neurology, 259, 9, 1769-80.
Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. (2014). Pet
scans: Get the facts. Retrieved from:
http://interactive.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=7988

13. POSITRON
EMISSIONS
TOMOGRAPHY
PET SCAN