Nuclear Medicine & PET/CT
Nuclear medicine incorporates very small amounts of radioactive “tracers” to diagnose or treat disease. These procedures are very safe and most require no special preparation by the patient. The radiologist will use only as much radioactive material as is necessary to provide diagnostic information. In fact, the patient’s exposure to the radioactive material is minimal, and the benefit of early and accurate diagnosis far outweighs the potential risk of this tiny amount of radioactive material.
During the study, tracers in the body emit tiny amounts of radiation that are detected by a special type of camera. The scintillation or gamma camera produces images that provide information about the anatomy and function of the body part being imaged.
Nuclear medicine procedures are very sensitive tests that can show the physiology of an organ and detect abnormalities in its structure or function. Abnormalities can be detected very early in the course of a disease, often well before a medical problem would be apparent using other procedures. Nuclear medicine is used most commonly for bone scans, cardiac stress imaging, thyroid uptake, and kidney, liver, spleen and gallbladder scans.
Other than the injection of the tracer element into a vein, which is similar to having blood drawn, a nuclear medicine study is non-invasive. You will not feel anything from the radioactive substance itself and side effects or adverse reactions are very rare. The scan itself is painless.
PET/CT
Positron Emission Tomography or a PET scan is a type of nuclear medicine study. Like nuclear medicine, a radioactive tracer is introduced into the body by inhaling, swallowing or injecting it into a vein. The tracer will concentrate in the organ or body system that is being studied.
A PET/CT study offers the latest in diagnostic imaging because it combines the unique metabolic strength of a PET scan with the anatomic clarity of a CT scan. The PET component of the study measures important body functions, such as blood flow, oxygen use and metabolism, to help doctors evaluate how well organs and tissues are functioning. The CT scan uses x-ray beams to produce multiple concise anatomic images of the body part being studied. The combined PET/CT scan provides images that pinpoint the location of abnormal metabolic activity within the body.
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