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[Title] Alliance Medical
[Title] The PET/CT Scan - what happens?
PET/CT stands for "positron emission tomography",
and it's combined with a CT scan.
Now, the PET scan gives you
functional information about the body...
The CT scan gives you structural information
about the body.
And what we do using those two scans
is we actually fuse the two together,
so we can pinpoint exactly
where any increases in activity are,
actually anatomically using the CT scan.
Now, in terms of a PET scan,
the first thing that will happen
when you come on board the trailer
is you'll have an injection
of radioactive tracer.
The radioactive tracer
is a glucose analogue,
so it's not going to make you feel any different
than you do normally,
but what it will do is
it'll go into your bloodstream
it will circulate around in your body,
and over the course of about 50 minutes
to an hour or so,
it's going to be taken up in your body
by the cells that are using energy.
Now, those cells that are using energy -
all of your cells in your body
naturally use energy -
but what you find is that
any abnormal cells, or any cells
where there are any healing processes,
or inflammatory processes are going on,
it will actually take up more of the injection.
So it will concentrate in those particular areas.
And after the hour or so
what we'll do is we'll ask you to go to
the toilet, just to empty your bladder for us.
Then we'll get you on the scanner,
you'll lie down on the bed on your back,
and have your arms up above your head
if you can manage that.
If not, it's not a problem.
We can still scan you.
And all we need you to do for the scan
is keep still.
There's no breath holding with this scan,
there's no instructions
to listen out for.
We can always see you through the window
and we can always hear you, so
although we're not in the room with you
we're always there if you do need us at all.
Now the scan itself,
it takes about 25 minutes
to half an hour or so,
depending on what procedure you're having.
Sometimes we have to do a double scan
so that could take, sort of, 45 minutes
to an hour,
but it really does depend on
the indication and also, as well,
if necessary we could always have
a couple of minutes break
between those two scans.
So you can have a little bit
of a wander round, get yourself settled,
and perhaps go to the toilet if you wanted to.
Um, in terms of the scan
as I say, there's no breath holding,
or anything like that.
The first few minutes of the scan
the machine actually does a CT scan,
so you hear a whirring noise,
and the scanner will move you
in and out a couple of times.
Once it's done that
the bed will move you out to the far end,
so your head is actually going to be
out in the open at the back of the scanner,
and the machine will start
over your thighs.
And every 4 minutes or so
you'll feel the bed move you
back into the actual gantry itself,
and it's going to work up your body
from your thighs up towards your head,
taking pictures of
whereabouts that injection has gone to.
The majority of the time
your head's out in the open,
and for those patients who are
a little bit claustrophobic,
um, as I say, there's only a couple of minutes
where you're actually underneath the gantry,
and the majority of the time
you know, we can always see you,
we can always hear you,
if you need us you just give us a shout
we'll get you through it
if you are struggling at all.
Now, once you've actually finished
the procedure,
(the procedure itself takes about
an hour and a half in total,
from resting to scan),
you'll be free to go home.
You can start eating as normal.
In terms of the actual radioactive injection
you are going to be radioactive
for 8 hours after the injection.
So we do ask you to stay away
from any pregnant ladies
and any children for us.
But after the 8 hours is gone
there's no precautions
and you can just go ahead with
your activities as normal.
In the radiation point of view as well,
you will notice that once you've had
the injection the staff
will try and minimize contact
with you as much as possible.
We ask you not to take this personally
it's just because we work
with the stuff all the time,
we've just got to be really careful
from our safety point of view.
But in terms of the actual exposure
to the radioactivity in yourself
having the injection,
the benefit of finding out the information
is outweighing the relatively
small risk that there is
from the exposure to the
radioactive injection itself.
The results will be sent back to your Consultant.
They could take anywhere up to, sort of,
a week or so.
But normally you're looking about 2-3 working days.
And what will happen after that
is if you haven't got an appointment
to go back to see your consultant,
they will get in touch with you,
and get you back in
to discuss your results.
And in terms of the actual, sort of,
management, as a benefit of having the
PET/CT scan,
it will allow the consultant to actually
tailor your treatment
exactly to your situation
rather than just sort of,
doing the generic treatment
if you like, for that particular problem.
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