Dear Molecular Imaging Insider,
For the staging, restaging, or recurrence evaluation of many types of carcinoma, PET stands head and shoulders above other modalities such as CT, MRI, or ultrasound. When it comes to staging colon cancer in particular, PET imaging has shown that it is simply superior to conventional CT imaging.
A research team from the Hahnemann University Hospital and Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Philadelphia recently put the modalities in a head-to-head test of the efficacy of whole-body 18FDG-PET imaging compared with conventional CT in imaging colon cancer patients. When the team compared the PET studies with the CT exams, they found a sensitivity of 89% for PET compared with 50% for CT.
In addition to its significant advantage in sensitivity, PET may have other benefits when compared with CT imaging for cancer staging. The researchers believe that radiation exposure can be lower than with CT, because CT examinations may require multiple scans. Also, because one PET scan can produce the same -- or better -- results as multiple CT scans, PET may end up being more cost effective than CT, they said.
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