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Washington, D.C. — A painless and relatively inexpensive option for cancer detection and staging is available to patients thanks to the new positron emission tomography (PET) scanner by Nuclear Medicine last month.
According to Harvey Ziessman, MD (Nuclear Medicine),the PET scanner can locate tumors, determine whether known tumors are benign or cancerous and track the spread of cancer throughout the body. "You can only attack the disease if you know where it is. This allows you better staging and to pick out those hidden lesions which may have been missed by other procedures, other tests," he says. It can also determine the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The procedure works by tracking a radiolabeled glucose that is injected into the patient prior to the scan. Energy consuming cancer cells grab up the glucose while the scanner takes pictures. "Cancer cells grow at such a rapid rate. In doing that, they need energy. They use glucose, just like normal cells, but they use a lot more," Ziessman says, adding that when the cancer cells eat up the glucose, they light up like a light bulb."
The light bulb effect renders the procedure simple: If the tumor lights up, it is malignant. If the tumor does not light up, it is benign. One benefit of determining malignancy with the PET scanner is that the procedure is painless. The patient with a tumor confirmed as benign by the PET scanner is spared the surgical procedure necessary for performing a traditional biopsy.
If a tumor is found to be malignant, accurately staging the cancer’s spread is crucial. Because traditional staging methods can sometimes be inconclusive, the PET scanner is lifesaving technology. Once the cancer is staged using the PET scanner, the physician determines the best treatment for the patient. If a surgical procedure is necessary, the surgeon benefits by knowing exactly where to operate. If the cancer’s spread is extensive, the physician then can decide whether radiation therapy or chemotherapy would benefit the patient. Ziessman says this aspect of staging with the scanner also is cost effective.
The PET scanner currently is most effective in detecting and staging lung cancer, melanomas, colorectal cancer, lymphomas, breast, pancreatic cancer and Hodgkin’s disease, malignant brain tumors, and other tumors. Ziessman says as time goes by, the scanner likely will be used for many other types of cancers. He expects patients to be referred from a wide area since there are no clinically dedicated PET scanners in the District or Montgomery County.
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