Health Imaging & IT - March 2008 - (Page 36)

technology trenDs By Beth Walsh PET/CT: A Game-Changer in Cancer Patient Management By combining functional and anatomical information to evaluate malignant tumors, PET/CT is helping physicians perform more accurate initial staging for therapy and determine the body’s response to treatment. It is truly making a difference in cancer care and treatment. “I think PET/CT is becoming de facto practice in many oncology scenarios,” says Kevin Berger, MD, director of PET imaging at Michigan State University, department of radiology in Ann Arbor. That’s the case for lung cancer and becoming true for a broader range of cancers, he says. Berger uses GE Healthcare’s Discovery STE 16. PET/CT has proven to be effective in measuring treatment response in numerous cancers, including colorectal, lymphoma, breast and esophageal. Since cancers have a higher energy requirement and therefore accumulate tracers such as fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) at a greater rate, clinicians can obtain valuable information about the activity of the tumor. “We can use the PET camera to detect distribution of this tracer and see where their cancer is and see what the change in that effect is.” The ability to see how active the tumor is makes it easier to pinpoint and decide how to treat. Detecting cancer…better Berger says he recently spoke with a thoracic surgeon about the impact PET/CT has had on his practice. The surgeon does an initial PET staging study on every lung cancer patient and “has been amazed how many times that changed his management from prior to using PET.” With a rate of change hovering around 30 percent, “it can make a huge difference.” The ability to find unsuspected metastatic disease, for example, indicates that the patient is not a good surgical candidate. That prevents patients from undergoing surgery that probably wouldn’t have any benefit. However, with PET/CT, unexpected disease is less and less common, Berger says. Because of better initial staging, patients are getting more appropriate and effective therapy the first time around. In some cases where the patient was not resectable initially, restaging after chemoradiation that shows good response can indicate that the patient has become a good surgical candidate. Appropriate therapy at all points of treatment certainly benefits the patient’s outcome. PET/CT is “absolutely changing patient outcomes,” says Shyam B. Paryani, MD, HealthImaging.com [ Acquired on a Siemens Biograph FDG PET-CT during follow-up in a case of lymphoma, shows solitary mediastinal lymph node involvement. ] 36 Health Imaging & IT | March 2008 http://HealthImaging.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Health Imaging & IT - March 2008

Health Imaging & IT - March 2008 Table of Contents On the Web The Enterprise: Communicating Better News Update Critical Test Results Management: The Human Touch The Changing Face of the Cath Lab Cardiovascular CT: A Clinical Boon Cardiology PACS: Solutions to Fit Your Needs ACC 08: Building Quality & Value Together Picking the Perfect PACS Displays PET/CT: A Game-Changer in Cancer Patient Management DR: You Gotta Have IT – Delivering Speed, Efficiency, Savings Laser Imagers: Answering the Call for Hard Copy Reader's Resources Stat Sheet

Health Imaging & IT - March 2008

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