Tanner Health System has on its Carrollton campus a state-of-the-art whole body PET scanner (Philips Gemini Pet/CT scanner).

Gemini PET/CT 360 Degree Tour

PET is a nuclear medicine technique using a camera, which captures powerful images of the human body's function and reveals information of health and disease. Compounds normally existing in the body, like simple sugars, are labeled with radioactive tracers, which emit signals and are injected into the body intravenously. The scanner records the signals that the tracer emits as it journeys through the body and as it collects in targeted organs. A powerful computer reassembles the signals into actual images, which then show biological maps of normal organ function and failure of organ systems in disease.

The reason why PET is so successful is that no other imaging technique shows the internal chemistry of the body so well. Conventional imaging techniques such as X-ray, CAT scans, and Magnetic Imaging Resonance shows anatomy. PET detects chemical and metabolic changes in disease states, such as cancer, before anatomic and structural changes (detected by conventional imaging) have time to develop. Therefore PET can detect diseases when anatomic imaging studies are still normal, and may be informative in differentiating benign from malignant process. PET evaluation of tissue metabolism can indicate the probable presence or absence of malignancy based on differences of biological activity, where as anatomic imaging depends on size and radiographic characteristics of lesions to determine the likelihood of malignancy. In addition, whole body imaging with PET provides a means to examine all the organ systems in the entire body for both primary and metastatic disease in one procedure.

Discover the power of Positron Emission Tomography (PET). When your doctor refers you for a PET scan, you will be introduced to a medical imaging technique that can search for cancer anywhere in your body, can diagnose Alzheimer's disease years before symptoms occur or prove that bypass surgery would benefit your damaged heart. PET can tell you whether a tumor is benign or malignant and can show you if a malignant tumor has spread. With a single PET image, abnormalities of brain function can be found that would otherwise go undetected.

Medicare, as well as many third party payers have begun to reimburse for PET because it as been shown that in certain specific disease states PET procedures are cost effective, that is, in certain situations PET is superior to conventional imaging without increasing the cost of the management of these clinical situations. PET has been shown to decrease the cost of diagnostic work-up in the situations listed below by avoiding unnecessary invasive diagnostic and surgical procedures in patients for whom these procedures will have little or no benefit. Given the importance of clinical decisions being made by PET, HCFA recognizes that the quality of image production is a significant concern. Medicare limits coverage of FDG PET to use by high-end full ring dedicated PET scanners. (Alternative Hybrid PET cameras, such as dual head Gamma Cameras equipped with molecular coincidence detection or Gamma Cameras equipped with 511 KEV collimators have been shown to be vastly inferior in sensitivity and exams performed by these hybrid devices are not approved by Medicare for reimbursement purposes.)