CT (Nuclear Medicine & PET/CT)

PET CT is a single scanner that can perform a CT scan and PET imaging at the same time with overlap of the images. The CT scan is based on x-ray and provides a detailed 3D image of the organs. The PET or Position Emission Tomography scan is a metabolic scan that provides a map of metabolic activity based on a metabolic agent that is injected. The metabolic agent has a very low level of radioactivity that is detected on the PET scanner. The metabolic agent is passed most often in the urine and is FDA approved. Reactions to the metabolic agent are uncommon. With the new technology at SimonMed, the dose is often 50% less than other providers, and PET CT scans are much quicker with scan times as short as 10-15 minutes.

The PET CT reading radiologist is looking at abnormalities in the CT scan, but also abnormalities relating to metabolic activity in the tissues. For example, normal lymph nodes are usually not very metabolically active so abnormal activity or “uptake” could be of concern in certain conditions.

The use of PET CT or metabolic imaging is growing rapidly with the development of precision medicine and new metabolic agents not only to look for cancer, but many other conditions including neurological conditions.

The ability to produce high definition images is very important. A CT scanner has a sharpness near a human hair in thickness. The advanced PET CT technology at SimonMed uses newer types of hardware and software, including post processing with artificial intelligence (AI) type programs such as Time-of-Flight to produce images with a resolution of millimeters.