PET/CT Scan -
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Published on: 4/8/2002
Last Visited: 9/6/2006
An Interview with Ronald Rosenberg, MD,Medical Director, Clinical Nuclear Medicine
Imagine being able to look inside the human body and immediately see a vivid glow exactly where cancer cells are silently threatening the body's health ... COMPLETE INTERVIEW >>
That's precisely what physicians can do with a sophisticated instrument now available at Hartford Hospital.
Ronald Rosenberg, MD, medical director of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, says that the General Electric (GE) Discovery LS is "a next-generation imaging system that combines PET and CT scanning to produce vivid, three-dimensional images that reveal, with great accuracy, exactly where cancer is present and the extent to which surrounding tissues are involved."
The instrument's PET component shows where an injected radioactive material called 18F-FDG, which mimics glucose, accumulates in the body.Because cancer cells readily take up 18F-FDG, a tumor creates a bright glow on the image.
The Discovery's CT component provides a clear picture of all of the body's structures.
"This new instrument superimposes the PET and CT scans to give us an image that is perfectly co-registered," says Dr. Rosenberg.
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"A scan that would take 50 minutes on an ordinary PET scanner takes only 30 minutes with the combined PET/CT scanner," explains Dr. Rosenberg."And the calculations, which correct for individual variables, are done more accurately too, so the images are much better."
Dr. Rosenberg says Hartford Hospital is proud to be the only facility in the region with this sophisticated capability.But the hospital has considered the human element, too.
"We were careful to place the scanner next to a large, sunny window," he says.
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