pet_opt The experts you need. The care you deserve.

Treatment Options PET/CT

Positron Emission Tomography / Computerized Tomography Fusion Scan (PET/CT) has become a prime example of two perfectly blended technologies fighting cancer. Almost a one-two punch designed to knockout cancer.

Alone each modality has strengths, PET reads cellular metabolism of glucose by using fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a radiotracer injected into the bloodstream that acts like glucose. Cancer cells use glucose at a much higher rate than normal cells, and this uptake is detected by PET. The glucose uptake detected by PET, will reveal a metabolically active, or malignant tumor. CT produces cross-sectional X-Rays of anatomical structures. CT cannot determine whether a tumor is malignant or benign, but it reveals exactly where the tumor is located.

When married together, PET/CT reveals both anatomic and metabolic information in one noninvasive procedure. Each provides a set of information that the other does not. One compliments the other when integrated together as PET/CT. Together they play a large role in radiation treatment planning, particularly for patients receiving IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy). The fusion of PET/CT provides increased sensitivity and specificity in cancer diagnosis and radiation treatment planning. The clinicians will be better served to locate areas of metabolically active cancers that require high dose of radiation and also determine whether or not malignancies have spread to other parts of the body. Non active tissues can then be spared from unnecessary radiation.

Currently, Radiation Oncology Associates physicians are using PET/CT for cancer diagnosis and treatment planning for non-small cell carcinoma of the lung, lymphoma, colorectal cancer, melanoma, head and neck cancer and thyroid cancer. Soon coverage will expand to small cell carcinoma of the lung, ovarian, cervical, testicular and pancreatic cancers.