What is a 'PET' Scan?

What is a 'PET' Scan?

PET scan is just a short way of describing a long name called "Positron Emission Tomography." And this is probably one of the newer scans we have available. It's a functional scan, and the difference between a functional and a static scan is pretty similar to the difference between a polaroid and a video camera. A PET scan tries not to decide whether something is there but whether that something is doing something. Is there actually activity? As opposed to a static scan, like a CAT scan. The purpose of that is to determine is there something actually there. So, what happens is you go into an imaging center, they give you an injection of glucose, which is sugar. This glucose goes through your body, and it is absorbed by the tissues of your body. The tissues that absorb it the most usually will be tissues that are growing the fastest such as a cancer, or tissues that are under some sort of reparative process as if you had a broken arm and your body is trying to fix it. These areas would require more of the sugar. This sugar that they give you glows, so when they take the picture, wherever the sugar goes, it will glow, and by correlating where it's glowing with the part of the body, they're able to say that this is abnormal or normal. This is what a PET scan ultimately does: it shows function, activity. There is something in your body doing something because it is eating that sugar.