Virtual Tour   Home | Group | Contact us Specialities     Cardio Thoracic Surgery     Cardiology     Cosmetology and Plastic Surgery     Critical Care     Dentistry     Dermatology     Diabetology     Emergency and Trauma Care     Endocrinology     ENT     Gastroenterology     General & Laporoscopic Surgery     Gynaecology and Obstetrics     Internal Medicine     Neonatology     Nephrology & Dialysis     Neurology and Neurosurgery     Nuclear Medicine     Oncology     Orthopaedics     Paediatrics     PET CT Scan     Pulmonology     Radiology     Rheumatology     Transfusion Medicine     Transplantation     Urology     Vascular Surgery  Home | Specialties | PET-CT Scan PET CT Scan  Positron emission tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image or map of functional processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radioisotope, which is introduced into the body on a metabolically active molecule. Images of metabolic activity in space are then reconstructed by computer analysis, often in modern scanners aided by results from a CT X-ray scan performed on the patient at the same time, in the same machine.  The molecule most commonly used for this purpose is fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a sugar, for which the waiting period is typically an hour   Seek an appoinment PET is a valuable technique for some diseases and disorders, because it is possible to target the radio-chemicals used for particular bodily functions.  Oncology: PET scanning with the tracer fluorine-18 (F-18) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), called FDG-PET, is widely used in clinical oncology. This tracer is a glucose analog that is taken up by glucose-using cells and phosphorylated by hexokinase (whose mitochondrial form is greatly elevated in rapidly-growing malignant tumours). A typical dose of FDG used in an oncological scan is 200-400 MBq for an adult human. Because the oxygen atom which is replaced by F-18 to generate FDG is required for the next step in glucose metabolism in all cells, no further reactions occur in FDG. Furthermore, most tissues (with the notable exception of liver and kidneys) cannot remove the phosphate added by hexokinase. This means that FDG is trapped in any cell which takes it up, until it decays, since phosphorylated sugars, due to their ionic charge, cannot exit from the cell. This results in intense radiolabeling of tissues with high glucose uptake, such as the brain, the liver, and most cancers. As a result, FDG-PET can be used for diagnosis, staging, and monitoring treatment of cancers, particularly in Hodgkin's disease, non Hodgkin's lymphoma, and lung cancer. Many other types of solid tumors will be found to be very highly labeled on a case-by-case basis-- a fact which becomes especially useful in searching for tumor metastasis, or for recurrence after a known highly-active primary tumor is removed. Because individual PET scans are more expensive than "conventional" imaging with computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), expansion of FDG-PET in cost-constrained health services will depend on proper health technology assessment; this problem is a difficult one because structural and functional imaging often cannot be directly compared, as they provide different information. Oncology scans using FDG make up over 90% of all PET scans in current practice. PET scan of the human brain. Neurology: PET neuro imaging is based on an assumption that areas of high radioactivity are associated with brain activity. What is actually measured indirectly is the flow of blood to different parts of the brain, which is generally believed to be correlated, and has been measured using the tracer oxygen-15. However, because of its 2-minute half-life O-15 must be piped directly from a medical cyclotron for such uses, and this is difficult. In practice, since the brain is normally a rapid user of glucose, and since brain pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease greatly decrease brain metabolism of both glucose and oxygen in tandem, standard FDG-PET of the brain, which measures regional glucose use, may also be successfully used to differentiate Alzheimer's disease from other dementing processes, and also to make early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The advantage of FDG-PET for these uses is its much wider availability. PET imaging with FDG can also be used for localization of seizure focus: A seizure focus will appear as hypometabolic during an interictal scan. Cardiology, atherosclerosis and vascular disease study: In clinical cardiology, FDG-PET can identify so-called "hibernating myocardium", but its cost-effectiveness in this role versus SPECT is unclear. Recently, a role has been suggested for FDG-PET imaging of atherosclerosis to detect patients at risk of stroke. Neuropsychology / Cognitive neuroscience: To examine links between specific psychological processes or disorders and brain activity. Psychiatry: Numerous compounds that bind selectively to neuroreceptors of interest in biological psychiatry have been radiolabeled with C-11 or F-18. Radioligands that bind to dopamine receptors (D1,D2, reuptake transporter), serotonin receptors (5HT1A, 5HT2A, reuptake transporter) opioid receptors (mu) and other sites have been used successfully in studies with human subjects. Studies have been performed examining the state of these receptors in patients compared to healthy controls in schizophrenia, substance abuse, mood disorders and other psychiatric conditions. Pharmacology: In pre-clinical trials, it is possible to radiolabel a new drug and inject it into animals. The uptake of the drug, the tissues in which it concentrates, and its eventual elimination, can be monitored far more quickly and cost effectively than the older technique of killing and dissecting the animals to discover the same information. PET scanners for rats and non-human primates are marketed for this purpose. The technique is still generally too expensive for the veterinary medicine market, however, so very few pet PET scans are done. Drug occupancy at the purported site of action can also be inferred indirectly by competition studies between unlabeled drug and radiolabeled compounds known apriori to bind with specificity to the site. Cyclotron, a high-frequency alternating voltage applied across the "D" electrodes (also called "dees") alternately attracts and repels charged particles. The particles, injected near the center of the magnetic field, accelerate only when passing through the gap between the electrodes. The perpendicular magnetic field (passing vertically through the "D" electrodes), combined with the increasing energy of the particles forces the particles to travel in a spiral path. With no change in energy the charged particles in a magnetic field will follow a circular path. In the Cyclotron, energy is applied to the particles as they cross the gap between the dees and so they are accelerated (at the typical sub-relativistic speeds used) and will increase in mass as they approach the speed of light. Either of these effects (increased velocity or increased mass) will increase the radius of the circle and so the path will be a spiral. (The particles move in a spiral, because a current of electrons or ions, flowing perpendicular to a magnetic field, experiences a perpendicular force. The charged particles move freely in a vacuum, so the particles follow a spiral path.) The radius will increase until the particles hit a target at the perimeter of the vacuum chamber. Various materials may be used for the target, and the collisions will create secondary particles which may be guided outside of the cyclotron and into instruments for analysis. The results will enable the calculation of various properties, such as the mean spacing between atoms and the creation of various collision products. Subsequent chemical and particle analysis of the target material may give insight into nuclear transmutation of the elements used in the target. Cyclotrons can be used to treat cancer. Ion beams from cyclotrons can be used, as in proton therapy, to penetrate the body and kill tumors by radiation damage, while minimizing damage to healthy tissue along their path. Cyclotron beams can be used to bombard other atoms to produce short-lived positron-emitting isotopes suitable for PET imaging. This reactor is to be installed in the ground floor of the proposed annexe building at the Pallikaranai complex. THe above PET-CT Scanner is installed by the Dr Kamakshi Memorial Hospital at Adyar,Chennai-600020(Cancer Institute Campus). It was inagurated on June 06,2008 by the Hon'ble Finance Minister Prof.K.Anbazhagan. Now the facility is available for the public.