Benefits of Undergoing Whole Body PET-CT Scan
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a confirmation and diagnostic tool, but it is also used in prevention.
PET is a non-invasive diagnostic technique that allows images to be displayed that show the metabolism and function of tissues and organs, based on glucose consumption. These tests are accurate and offer unprecedented explorations until recently.
All tissues consume glucose, but those in which malignant proliferation is occurring consume much more. By injecting a glucose solution with a radioactive (but innocuous) marker into the patient and passing it through the PET, it collects the radiation emitted at that moment.
That radiation allows the operating system of the PET to draw a map of the body in which the highest concentrations of glucose are collected so that the doctor can determine the malignancy of a known lump or even detect more incipient metastasis in its degrees.
For example, if a patient is found to have a tumor or nodule in the lung after a simple chest radiograph, we would be required to perform a CT scan, a fibroscopy and probably even a biopsy, with all the costs and risks involved in these tests, which could be supplied simply with a whole body pet scan Delhi.
The diagnosis would soon be made, determining whether it is malignant or benign, and even if it were malignant, the latter so important for the treatment and prognosis of cancer patients.
One of the great uses of PET is to detect where the dreaded metastases are going. The test is requested for the extension study of cancer. With this information, the best therapeutic option is designed, if the most opportune are the surgical one, with resection of the tumor area, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or the combination of several. Also, once the treatments have been performed, a PET test allows you to check if they have been successful.
Whole body pet scan Delhi offers information that can be determinant to change the treatment of a patient and thus increase their life expectancy. It is estimated that PET has a sensitivity of 95% to distinguish if a lung tumor is malignant, compared to 68% of CT. It detects cancers of the brain, breast, ovary, pancreas, colon, rectum, gastroesophageal, endocrine, head and neck, among others.
But it has more applications and more and more uses. For example, a whole body pet scan cost in Delhi can be ordered to detect vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels), and in the case of patients with fevers of unknown origin, the test can locate the infection that causes them.
Among the benefits of conducting a PET study, we can point out:
Diagnosis of different pathologies, before structural changes, occur, since metabolic changes precede anatomical changes.
Improved prognosis of many diseases by allowing an early diagnosis.
It is possible to assess early response to therapy in the patient through variations in the metabolism of an injury.
Reduce costs by avoiding unnecessary procedures, treatments, and hospitalizations.
It can replace multiple diagnostic procedures.
It also identifies lesions of a distant metastasis type that will change the therapeutic behavior.
It defines more accurately which patients will benefit from a surgical procedure, optimizing costs.
