I found your description very interesting as I had no idea of the
procedure. Thanks.
Christine
At 09:58 PM 01/10/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi Gina,
>I had a PET scan to diagnose a recurrence of lung cancer. Of course I'm not
>a medical professional, but here's what I know and what the experience was
like:
>
>Unlike a CAT scan which is an anatomical picture of your body (or the
>relevant parts that they're interested in...), the PET scan is a
>METABOLIC picture of your body. They first inject you with a substance that
>includes glucose and some radioactive material. The picture that they are
>going to take measures how quickly the glucose is being metabolized by your
>body. The radioactive stuff is a tracer so they can detect it in the scan.
>The cancer cells metabolize more glucose because they're growing and
>multiplying faster.
>
>After the injection (which doesn't hurt) Then you wait quietly for 30
>minutes in the waiting room, without talking. If you talk then your throat
>will pick up more activity and it will give a false positive in the throat
>and mouth area. Then they have you lie down on the gurney-like thing and you
>go into a tube, head first. Whereas CAT scans are pretty quick, the picture
>they take with a PET scan takes a lot longer. I had to lie there perfectly
>still for 40 minutes, then I could get up for 20 minutes, then lie back down
>for 45 minutes. They played good music and you kind of drift off mentally.
>The "tube" they put you in is pretty small and I am a large lady, so I just
>barely fit. That made it pretty hard to get comfortable. There are some men
>whose shoulders are too broad to fit in the machine...Occasionally they
>would move thegurney automatically back and forth to scan different areas.
>
>The resulting picture covers most or all of your body (mine was from top of
>my head to my knees, but they also do the Whole Body some times) and any
>malignancies that are as large as .5 cm (i.e. half a centimeter) will
>"light up" on the picture. It is 90% accurate either way...i.e. you have a
>10% chance of a false negative or a false positive result.
>Also, it is somewhat less accurate for detecting any brain malignancies,
>because of how the brain NORMALLY metabolizes glucose (it creates some
>"static" for the picture, but it can still detect brain tumors.
>
>Some providers consider it experimental but it is becoming more widely
>accepted. Costs between $1500 and $2500 per scan and must be done near a
>linear accelerator.....From what I have read it is MOST useful when there is
>also a CAT scan. That way, they can compare the two and have a more complete
>understanding of the exact dimensions of the thing...(if there's a thing at
>all...)
>Hope this helps.
>
>Torie
>
>At 11:04 PM 10/1/98 EDT, you wrote:
>>could someone please help me, has anyone had a pet scan? if so was it for
>>colon cancer? and could you please tell me more thank you Gina.
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