What's a PET/CT Machine?

​PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
One thing we learned early on when Kim was diagnosed with cancer is that cancer cells use sugar as an energy source; cancer cells come alive when there is sugar to be had. A PET/CT machine uses this against the cancer cells to get them to show themselves.

When someone goes for a PET/CT scan, a special type of sugar is combined with a safe radioactive component to create a tracer. When this combination of sugar and radioactive material is injected into a person, it is taken up by the cancer cells and emits a signal that these scanning machines recognize and map.  How strong the signal is, or the uptake in the cancer cells, can tell the doctor reading the scan how prevalent the cancer is in any area of the body.
 
During Kim’s cancer journey, she had five of these scans. My notes from the follow-up meetings with Kim's oncologist are peppered with phrases like, “strong uptake, little uptake, she lit up here, dim resolution in that spot, more brightness since last time.”
 
PET/CT Scans can also show how the tumor or lesions are changing in terms of size and shape, and most importantly, where exactly they are in the body.
 
When Kim went for her scans, she would have to take it easy in the hours leading up to the scan, so her body was relaxed. She would fill out a brief questionnaire. This is when she would leave me to go to the exam room, where she would get injected with the tracer. She would then wait for about an hour for it to work throughout her body, ensuring no cancer cell clusters were missed, and then go for the scan, taking about 20-30 minutes. These new scanners dramatically decrease the length of time it takes to do the scan.
 
The results would usually be ready after a day or two, and we would schedule a time to meet with her oncologist to understand the results and together make the next step treatment decisions.

Right now in BC, we only have four of these scanners, with none in the Fraser Valley Region. Together, we want to bring two new scanners to the new Surrey/Cloverdale BC Cancer Centre.