Intermountain Press Release

American Fork, Utah—One of the best tools for diagnosing cancer is a PET/CT scan and the only place to get one in Utah County is at American Fork Hospital.

Both PET scanners and CT scanners have separately been providing diagnostic images to physicians for many years. PET scans, or positron emission tomography scans, focus primarily on physiologic data while CT scans provide anatomical data. Combining the two scans enables physicians to make a significantly more specific and precise diagnosis.

"This is the neatest thing since sliced bread as far as cancer imaging is concerned," said Daniel Rasband, MD, the radiologist who reads the PET/CT images. Dr. Rasband is the only radiologist in the state to complete a fellowship with formal PET/CT training, which he did at Duke University under Ed Coleman, MD, who many consider to be the father of PET imaging.

During a PET/CT scan, a patient is injected with a radioactive glucose solution known as FDG (fluorodeoxyglucose). The FDG goes into metabolically active cells such as cancer cells and creates a "hot spot" on the resulting image. Because the PET/CT image is so precise, physicians can tell how far a cancer has metastasized; determine if a chemotherapy regimen is working or identify the primary location of a cancer that previously had an unknown source.

Pinpointing the exact location of his cancer is how a PET/CT scan helped Vic Hammond. Doctors diagnosed the 80-year-old Pleasant Grove resident with esophageal cancer earlier this year and believed that it had also invaded his liver. However, the results of a PET/CT scan showed no sign of cancer in Hammond's liver. "The reason we knew where to treat Mr. Hammond's cancer was the PET/CT scan. We were able to precisely treat him with radiation and he has shown a complete response," said Jay Clark, MD, one of Hammond's oncologists.

A PET/CT scanner is an open machine that can scan the entire body or just specified areas. A patient must not exercise for 12 hours prior to the test and then must remain calm and quiet for 60-90 minutes after the FDG injection. Lying still is a must to get a clear image and most scans can be completed within 25 to 30 minutes of actual imaging time.

"Anything metabolically active shows on a PET/CT scan, so if a cancer patient has an infection of any kind, it will show. The patient history is a critical piece of this test," said Dr. Rasband.