What can a pet scan show?

Functioning: It is a functional test and shows which parts of the body are using the most glucose. This is an indirect measure of how active the cells are.

What is the question: Currently pet scans are widely use for evaluation of glucose metabolism in the body. In oncology, is use to for initial metabolic characterization of tumors, metastases as well as for treatment response and surveillance. In cardiology, pet scans are use to assess heart ischemia and viability and in neurology the study is use to evaluate cognitive disorders, epilepsy and brain tumors

Physiology of lesion: Pet scans most often use a radioactive form of glucose, the energy source for most of the cells in our bodies. The pet scanner can detect and measure how much of the radioactive glucose analog, f-18 fdg, is in a particular organ or region. The areas using more glucose are hyper metabolic and generally more worrisome. Our brains and sometimes hearts prefer glucose as food, making it hard to see.

Many things: Pet scans can show many conditions but most often a glucose based tracer is used to evaluate for metabolic activity which can be increased in infectious/inflammatory conditions or malignancy.