What does a pet scan for leukemia show? since leukemia is in the blood, does it show cancer cells spread all over your body or does it show the cells concentrated in certain areas?

While : While pet imaging is commonly used for staging and restaging of lymphoma, pet imaging is not in widespread clinical use in the diagnosis or staging of leukemia. This is partly due to the diffuse nature of leukemia compared to the more focal findings characteristic of lymphoma. However, there are likely many ongoing research studies looking at pet imaging in leukemia, and patients with leukemia may choose to be enrolled in such a study if available. This could potentially benefit patients with leukemia in the future. There is some evidence, in at least one published report of two cases, that pet scans show diffusely increased uptake in the bone marrow of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (cml). Follow-up pet scans after treatment showed reduced bone marrow uptake in these two patients.

A PET scan: Would be utilized to show involvement of the lymph nodes which does occur in many leukemias.