A Comparison of Today's Nuclear Medicine Scanning Technologies.

What I have learned is that there are 2 kinds of PET scanner both using FDG (radioactive glucose) as the isotope used.

1. Co-PET ( only has 2 cameras which rotate around the circumference)
2. Dedicated PET (has cameras all the way round the circumference)

The Co-PET is only sensitive to lymphoma avid disease masses of 1.5cm or greater.
The Dedicated PET is sensitive to Lymphoma avid disease masses of .8cm or greater.

Also I discovered that Gallium scans are also now far inferior to a PET scan for Hodgkin's Disease this is because Gallium is only sensitive to avid disease masses of 1.52cm or greater.

In a nutshell a Dedicated PET scan is twice as sensitive as a Gallium or Co-PET scan.

The important thing to note here is that it is ALL ABOUT how good the radiologist is at interpreting the scan picture itself. The reason some doctors do not advocate it is that many radiologists simply do not have the expertise to interpret the results.

For instance if you have had radiotherapy and still have some pnemonitis this will show up as a hot spot on the scan - however a good radiologist will check this against an x-ray and get you to have a CT scan as well. Scar tissue needs to be considered and carefully verified. There are few good radiologists in this area at the moment.

The simple reason why most patients are not given PETs is because of the cost and the lack of them.
To give you some idea the Philips Allegro ADAC Dedicated PET scanner costs 2.5 million Australian Dollars!

In London, UK

St Thomas' Hospital have a Dedicated PET scanner and now only use PETs for HD patients.
The Hammersmith also has a Dedicated PET scanner.

In Sydney, Australia

St Vincents only has a Co-PET scanner
Liverpool has a Dedicated PET
RPA (Royal Prince Alfread) has a Dedicated PET

You need to ask you Onco for it and accept nothing less. SEE THIS PAGE NOW

In Australia the governement has listed Hodgkin's Disease as one of the cancers covered by Medicare where a PET is always warranted in recurrent Hodgkin's cases.

This information if all thanks to Dr Michael Lin at St Vincent's Hospital Sydney Australia.

Gallium Scans

Avoid Gallium scans because (A) they are much more toxic, since gallium is a heavy metal, than a PET. Gallium is the injected nuclear isotope which is then readily absorbed by the kidneys and ultimately metabolised in the liver. (B) It is a far less sensitive diagnostic tool than a PET as you can see above. Gallium scans are really out of date now for HD and NHL.

CT scans

There is such a thing called a low dose Helical CT Scanner for those of you who are radiation concious. Again you may need to ask where there is one.