How does the procedure work:
A small amount of blood will be drawn in order to determine your blood sugar level. Once your blood sugar is confirmed to be low enough for the procedure, you will be given an injection of the radioactive tracer, Fluorine-18 (FDG). After the FDG is administered, you will rest quietly for 45 minutes while the tracer circulates through your body’s tissues. After the resting time, you will be taken into the facility to empty your bladder of any FDG that has collected while your were resting. You will then be taken to the Nuclear Medicine Technologist who will help you onto the imaging table where you will lie during the 20 to 30 minute scan.
The radioactive tracer, FDG, is injected into the bloodstream which distributes it throughout the body’s tissues. The cells then contain small amounts of radioactivity, which the PET scanner is able to detect and generate into an image of the body’s tissue metabolism. This PET image is then analyzed for abnormalities that could indicate diseases. PET/CT combines this metabolic PET image with the anatomical image of a CT scan. This give physicians a very precise image of both the body’s tissue function and structure in order to provide more accurate diagnosis and treatment planning.