PET Imaging Delivers a Better Way to Diagnose and Treat Cancer

Imagine being able to see deep inside the body to its molecular level to detect disease and injury without having to make people endure invasive procedures in the process. While X-rays and other imaging techniques have long provided glimpses inside, molecular imaging is taking the diagnosis and treatment of cancer to a whole new level.

Molecular imaging involves the use of positron emission tomography (PET) to give clinicians as deep look inside the body at its very cellular level. This type of scan relies on radioactive tracer dye that "lights up" diseased and damaged cells so they can be better seen, detected and treated.

Using hybrid imaging technology, such as the PET scan, doctors are able to clearly pinpoint the most active cancer cells in a tumor, for example. This can enable them to more carefully target biopsies for diagnosis while also enabling the more precise application of treatments, such as external beam radiation.

What does that mean for patients?

Molecular imaging techniques are enabling doctors to find, diagnose and treat cancer more precisely. On the diagnosis end, these more in-depth images can often see cancers that other imagining techniques cannot. They can also spare patients from excessive treatments by more precisely guiding biopsies so doctors can confirm or deny spread of cancer, for example.

Molecular imaging has also enabled the more precise delivery of treatments, such as radiation. This is especially important for patients who might otherwise find effective radiation treatments happen to damage many healthy cells in the process. With better imaging, doctors are better able to strike directly at cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue in the process.

Molecular imaging is opening a whole new door for cancer diagnosis and treatment. As this procedure becomes more widely accepted, practitioners are using it to help them in their fight against cancer while enabling patients to be spared from the potential of more intense side effects from treatment.

About AuthorPET / CT of Las Colinas was developed with both patients and physicians in mind and our services have been used for various types of disease; primarily in detecting, staging and monitoring cancer, but also in heart disease and brain disorders.

The PET / CT of Las Colinas is conveniently located within the Las Colinas Cancer Center on the Southwest corner of HWY 161 and Las Colinas Blvd. It is located adjacent to the Regions Bank and across HWY 161 from the Las Colinas Medical Center.