If A Pet Scan Lights Up Is It Cancer

Other things can cause a high suv however like infection or tissue damage like maybe from radiation.

If a pet scan lights up is it cancer.

One is 11 mm and growing fast and the other one is 8 cm mass. The pet scan on the right lights up the structures that contain cancer thus helping prove that the cancer has already spread to these lymph nodes and changing the patient s stage from stage i to stage iii and eliminating surgery as a good treatment option. I had my pet scan done on monday and found out today that i have to have a lung biopsy. Infections and healing wounds are just a couple of things that light up on pet scans.

Doctors introduce a tracer into the system and areas with high chemical activity show up on the screen as bright spots. Of course using the pet for a treasure hunt has become the norm with the dialog indicating that if it lights up it s cancer and the need for chemical therapy. Since the doctor said those areas lit up on the pet scan it would probably indicate that the cancer is still active in those areas. What they don t tell you is that any cell that is in the process of repair in the healing process or in the new growth process will light up.

Cancer tends to be more active thus it lights up on a pet scan but there are a number of other things that light up just like cancer. Steph pet scans see metabolic activity not cancer. Very intense brightness is usually cancer but this is. A positron emission tomography pet scan shows images of organs and tissues and how they are functioning.

The brightness you mention on pet is caused by metabolic activity and any trauma can cause an increase in metabolic activity. My younger brother a couple of years ago had a pet scan.