The role of PET-CT in the treatment of tumors

The role of PET-CT in the treatment of tumors

The role of PET-CT in the treatment of tumors. Experts recommend to receive a routine physical examination every year and a special anti-cancer examination every two to three years。

PET is one of the nuclear medicine examinations using radiopharmaceuticals. It is often used for the diagnosis of malignant tumors, cerebrovascular disorders, epilepsy, and ischemic heart disease. In Japan, insurance medical treatment started in April 2002. Add a radioactive isotope as a label to a substance that can be metabolized by the human body (such as glucose), inject it into a vein, wait for 1 hour, and take a full-body picture. PET can detect the labeled glucose accumulated in the malignant tumor. About 15 to 20 minutes, the whole body photography is over. Before formulating a treatment plan, perform a PET examination to investigate the spread and metastasis of the tumor. After treatment, it is very important to investigate whether there is a therapeutic effect and whether it has relapsed.

1. Identify benign and malignant tumors or lesions

As we all know, it is very important to distinguish between benign and malignant tumors. It is not only related to the treatment plan, but also directly affects the prognosis of the patient. If the patient has a single nodule in the lung, PET/CT examination, if the nodule has low metabolic activity, suggesting that the possibility of benign lesions is high, the choice of surgery should be cautious; on the contrary, if the metabolic activity of the nodule increases, it indicates malignancy Possibly, active treatment measures should be taken, including surgery.

2. Tumor staging

Tumor staging is an important basis for determining the treatment plan of patients. PET/CT performs whole-body imaging on patients. One PET/CT whole-body imaging can provide information on the presence or absence of metastasis in various organs of the body such as brain, lung, lymph nodes, liver, adrenal glands and bones, which is beneficial to lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer. , Ovarian cancer, lymphoma and other tumors for precise clinical staging. Taking the diagnosis of lymph node metastasis as an example, PET/CT is more accurate. This is because CT or MRI treats enlarged lymph nodes (>25px) as metastases. There are many lymph nodes that are enlarged due to chronic inflammation or will be affected by tumor tissue. Invaded lymph nodes of normal size are misjudged as normal, and PET judges whether metastasis based on the metabolic activity of the lymph nodes is more accurate than just considering the size of the lesion.

3. Efficacy evaluation

Due to the high sensitivity of PET/CT and the characteristics of functional metabolic imaging, it is more accurate and sensitive to judge the curative effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which is helpful to guide clinicians to adjust the treatment plan in time.

4. Identify necrosis, fibrosis and residual or recurrence after tumor treatment

PET/CT can distinguish tumor necrosis, fibrosis and residual or recurrence after chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, which is difficult to do with other imaging methods.

5. Help to formulate tumor radiotherapy plan

PET/CT can help radiation therapists outline a more reasonable biological target area and help formulate radiotherapy plans.

6. Finding the primary tumor

In patients with tumor metastases, PET/CT can be used to further search for the primary tumor.

PET is an advanced diagnostic technology that concentrates the essence of medicine, science and engineering, pharmacy, and computer science. PET diagnosis of malignant tumors was first developed in Japan and spread to the world. This method can be widely used in the prevention and treatment of diseases, and in the subsequent prevention and treatment, as well as to improve the recovery of patients.

PET examination has high detection sensitivity for cancer, and X-ray CT can show various parts of the body in millimeters. By using the two together and creating a fusion image, small cancerous lesions can be found. In order to reduce the radiation dose, CT imaging is performed as needed. In addition, additional MRI examinations are expected to further improve the accuracy of diagnosis. PET means “Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and PET, using rays and CT X. However, this mechanism is different from the fluoroscopy and CT to the photo’s “shadow” information obtained by sending the principle of radiation from outside the body . And the addition of whole-body MRI examinations makes the diagnosis accuracy improved.

Anti-cancer attention –  frequency of inspection:

Experts recommend a routine physical examination every year, and a special cancer prevention check every two to three years. Because cancer has no obvious symptoms in the early stage, only through advanced anti-cancer inspections can cancer be detected early. Do not think that you are usually healthy and negligent. Once you find obvious symptoms of cancer, you are often in the middle and late stages.

(source:chinanet)

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