What is a PET scan?

Answer 1

An imaging scan that measures the activity or functional level of the brain by measuring its use of glucose.

Positron emission tomography, a process that uses radiation to give you a 3d image of the body.

PET scans are used to view nodules in the lungs or pleural cavity and check other organs for infiltrates or spots, such as a spot on a kidney which can't be seen on regular x-ray equipment. It defines and makes problems clearer to see.

Answer 2

a combination scan utilitizing CT (CAT Scanning) and PET (Positron Emission Tomography). PET usually provides information regarding glucose metabolism of tissues. Cancerous tissues are glucose-hungry and show up differently on PET scans than healthy tissues, because of their different glucose metabolisms. While PET is great for metabolism, it doesn't provide great anatomic detail. The CT scan provides excellent detail (and also provides data correction for the PET, essentially cleaning up the PET a great deal). Combined, the PET-CT provides excellent information regarding tumor location and amount of glucose consumed. PET-CT is also used for cardiac imaging, neurologic imaging (Parkinsons disease, dementia, etc).

Answer 3

The PET scan gives images similar to a CT scan but it also gives additional images your doctor might need to help your diagnoses. There are considerations your doctor makes for doing each test.

Examples: cost of each, is each readily available where you are, will either give a better answer for your case, etc.

Answer 4

A pet CT scan is a high tech imaging machine that allows doctors to see if there is any tumors or cancer that might be growing with in the body. It is a very useful device.