PET Imaging — Not for Cats or Dogs As a medical imaging
researcher, I notice when medical imaging technologies are
mentioned by popular news media or medical-themed television
shows. Lately I’ve been seeing PET imaging mentioned more
frequently, including on TV shows like House and Grey’s Anatomy.
This probably just reflects the fact that dramatically
increasing numbers of PET scans are being performed in real life
in clinics and hospitals. So what is PET imaging? Funny that you
ask, because I just happen to do research in this field. In this
context, PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography. During a
PET scan, a trace amount of biologically-active, radioactive
drug is injected into the patient’s vein. The drug localizes
somewhere in the patient, depending on the metabolic properties
of the selected drug. The drug then emits a positron (anti-
particle of the electron), and the positron annihilates with an
electron in the patient’s body. The resulting energy forms gamma
ray pairs that pass through the patien