PET Scan in Action
This is a PET scan done to a patient who was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma. The diagram on the left shows many dark spots on the body. The dark spots are lymphoma that was caught after doing the PET scan. The diagram on the right shows the same patient but with less black spots. This means the patient got rid of the lymphoma. Thanks to PET scan the patient diagnosed with malignant lymphoma was caught just in time.
The Basic Process of a PET Scan
This diagram on the right shows the basic process of a PET scan. First the radiotracer is inserted in the body. Then the head in put through detector rings and slowly the rest of the body. This process takes about 30-60 minutes. Patient is asked to remain still.Then the information gets passed down to the coincidence processing unit. Then the processed information goes into the computer. Lastly a three dimensional of the scanned body part appears on the monitor.
A PET Scan of the Brain
This PET scan was taken to compare the activity during depression. The depressed brain is on the left, shows the increase of blue and green colors compared to the not depressed brain on the right. The depressed brain also has less whit and yellow ares, which shows decreased brain activity due to depression. Therefore a PET scan can determine many things according to the color shown.