What is a pet scan?

Sophisticated: Positron emission tomography----a pet scan is a very sophisticated scan of the body using injected radio-isotopic materials that are taken up by different body tissues and when scanned "light up" to help determine, usually, if there is cancer. It has other purposes.

Metabolic scan: A pet scan measures the glucose (sugar) consumption of different tissues in your body. Some abnormal tissue will consume more glucose than the surrounding tissue, making it easy to see on the scan. Sometimes this can represent cancer, sometimes it is something else. Your doctor would order it to look for something specific.

NUCLEAR CT SCAN: Pet scan is one type of nuclear ct scan (other type is called spect scan) that uses gamma rays as opposed to x-rays used in conventional or standard ct scan.

Cancer detection: Pet (positron emission tomography) scans (usually coupled with ct (pet-ct) detect hypermetabolic regions which are suspicious for either primary or metastic cancer. Expert interpretation is needed to distinguish benign from suspicious findings. Pet may also be used to evaulate stroke, alzheimers and other brain conditions.

Cancer detection: A pet scan uses a marker that mimics glucose, which your body uses for energy. Since cancer grows more rapidly than normal tissue, it takes up more glucose, which is detected on a pet scan. This why pet is used to look for cancer. Some slow growing tumors may not be detected on pet however.