The PET/CT allows physicians to see and treat cancer earlier and more precisely than ever in many cases by providing a combination of both anatomic structure (CT) and metabolic function (PET) in a single image.
Together, the PET/CT provides the technology to help your physician answer the most important questions about cancer with unprecedented speed, safety, and accuracy:
Is cancer present?
Has it spread?
Did the treatment work?
This extraordinary tool also significantly reduces the need for multiple tests and more invasive diagnostic procedures, as well as unnecessary surgeries.
A patient undergoing a PET (positron emission tomography) scan is administered a glucose (sugar) solution that contains a small amount of a safe, radioactive tracer element. As the tracer is metabolized by the body's system, it concentrates at the site of any cancer cells, even ones that have not reached the smallest tumor stage. The PET scanner sees the concentration, and the information is fused with an individualized anatomic image (or skeletal "map") provided by CT (computed tomography). The result is an extremely accurate, comprehensive image, which is then diagnosed by our specialized radiologists.
Other applications, some of which have never been obtainable before by any means, include the non-invasive diagnosis of certain neuro-psychiatric, orthopedic, and cardiac disorders.
PET/CT services are provided by Hudson Valley Radiology Associates. For further information about Hudson Valley Radiology Associates, click here.
