Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Center

Overview
What is PET?
What can PET detect?

Overview

PET imaging is unique in that it shows the chemical functioning of organs and tissues, while other imaging techniques – such as X-ray, CT and MRI – show structure. PET is particularly useful for the detection of cancer, coronary artery disease and brain disease.

What is PET?

What Can PET Detect?

Coronary Artery Disease
PET imaging is unique in its ability to determine whether a patient's heart muscle will benefit from coronary artery bypass surgery.

Example: Myocardial Viability

 

Image of heart which has had a mycardial infarction (heart attack). The arrow points to areas that have been damaged by the attack, indicating "dead" myocardial tissue. Therefore, the patient will not benefit from heart surgery, but may have other forms of treatment prescribed.	Normal heart

 

Tumors
PET imaging is very accurate in differentiating malignant from benign growths, as well as showing the spread of malignant tumors. PET imaging can help detect recurrent brain tumors and tumors of the lung, colon, breast, lymph nodes, skin, and other organs. Information from PET imaging can be used to determine what combination of treatment is most likely to be successful in managing a patient's tumor.

Example: Breast Cancer

 

Image showing malignant breast mass that was not revealed by conventional imaging techniques such as CT, MRI, and mammogram.	Image of same patient with enlarged left axillary lymph nodes (indicated by arrows), which through biopsy were found to be metastatic (spread from another location). The whole body scan reveals a mass in the left breast (indicated by arrow), that was malignant and subsequently removed.

 

Diseases of the Brain
PET imaging can provide information to pinpoint and evaluate diseases of the brain. PET imaging can show the region of the brain that is causing a patient's seizures and is useful in evaluating degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's. Within the first few hours of a stroke, PET imaging may be useful in determining treatment therapies.

Example: Seizures

 

Normal Brain	Image of the brain of a 9 year old female with a history of seizures poorly controlled by medication. PET imaging identifies the area (indicated by the arrows) of the brain responsible for the seizures. Through surgical removal of this area of the brain, the patient is rendered "seizure-free".