PET/CT

Accuracy is everything, especially when it comes to health care.

Knowing this, Blanchard Valley Hospital routinely brings one of the most accurate mobile diagnostic systems to Findlay so its patients will know the benefits of medical accuracy firsthand.

The overall procedure is called a PET/CT scan, which is short for a Positron Emission Tomography and Computerized Tomography. Pronounced "pet C-T," it"s a set of diagnostic tests that evaluate organ anatomy and body functions.

PET/CT scans can be used in patients with cardiac conditions, as well as those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Cancer patients may also undergo a PET/CT scan because the procedure can pinpoint the exact location of cancer within the body.

"It’s very good for cancer," says Lee Ann Smarkel, CNMT and Lead Technologist in Nuclear Medicine at BVH.

Ultimately, the precise nature of a PET/CT scan allows radiologists to prescribe the best course of treatment for their patients because they know exactly where to focus their attention.

But how does a PET/CT do all of this?

Because the patient has already been diagnosed with a particular condition, a PET/CT is ordered by a specialized medical professional, like a radiation or medical oncologist in the case of a cancer patient. Before the PET/CT takes place, a patient is injected with radioactive sugar water, called FDG, which will allow a radiologist to see any abnormal areas on the scan’s results. For 45 minutes, the patient must sit in a dark, quiet room to allow the radioactive tracer to circulate through their body.

The scan itself is performed in a mobile unit that comes to BVH on a regular basis. The patient receives two scans – the CT scan, which "takes an X-ray of the whole body," says Smarkel. The PET scan follows, which focuses on the physiological areas where the radioactive tracer will show up.

"We call them 'hot spots,'" Smarkel says, referring to the bright areas of light that will show up on the films that are produced from the PET scan.

When the procedure is finished, the results from the PET scan are laid on top of the results from the CT scan. A radiologist can not only see inside the patient’s body, but can also see exactly where their disease is located, thanks to the radioactive tracer.

The entire process takes about two hours.

At BVH, a Nuclear Medicine Specialist specially trained in PET/CT, then reads the scans and passes along information to the patient’s referring physician.

Smarkel says patients have many of the same concerns about the procedure.

"The exposure from the dose of radiation is low," she says. "You also don't feel any different because of the FDG."

"Those are the two biggest questions," says Smarkel.

While the PET/CT procedure is not yet commonplace in the medical community, the National PET Registry is studying when, where and how often the procedure is being used in the hopes to make it available to more people in the future.