PET Scan

Positron emission tomography is one of the newest imaging techniques.

You are injected with a small ammount of radioactive material that is taken up by active cells.

A scan of the body then shows areas of increased activity. These may show areas of cancer growth.

PET scanning is most useful in assessing whether cancer has spread to the lymph-nodes or beyond.

It is also useful in assesslng response to chemotherapy.

It is not very good at detecting small cancer changes within the breast.

PET scanning may be combined with other imaging methods such as CTscan to evaluate areas of increased uptake more precisely.

PET scanning is only available in a few centres and is expensive.

It is currently used selectively to sort out complex diagnostic problems.