PET Scan Research Papers

The PET scan, or Positron Emission Tomography, was born in 1973 at Washington University. It was created by Edward Hoffman, Michael M. Ter-Pogossian, and Michael E. Phelps; Phelps is most often credited with the invention (History of PET and MRI, 2009). In preparation for a PET scan, radioactive tracers are injected into the body, inhaled, or ingested by the patient through a solution that they drink. Then the scan will actually begin, as the patient lies on a table, which glides into the machine where all of the necessary images will be taken—this process will be described later in the paper—then the test will complete and the patient will slide back out of the machine. (See the image of the machine below). The PET scan is nuclear technology,
PET is used in conjunction with small amounts of radio-labeled compounds and a gamma camera to pick up and record the images that come from PET scans. A radioactive compound is inhaled or injected into the patient, and it accumulates in tissues. As the atoms in the compound decay, they release positrons, which, when they collide with electrons, both the electrons and positrons are annihilated, and two photons (light particles) are emitted. (See the image on the right). The photons are picked up by a detector ring on the PET scanner, and the computer uses the information to generate three-dimensional images that represent the bioactivity where the compound accumulated and released light (Christenson, 2014). Most of the time, the injection received by patients who undergo PET scans is a radioactive form of F- fluorodeoyglucose (FDG), which is metabolized in the same way that glucose is. Malignant (harmful) cells have faster metabolisms than normal cells, so they require more sugar to fuel their rapid metabolism. Thus, they use more of the F-FDG, emitting more of the photons detected by the gamma camera (Scanning the scans,
A cyclotron body consists of electrodes in a vacuum chamber. It is flat, and the vacuum chamber sits in a gap between the poles of a large magnet, creating a perpendicular magnetic field. Then, a stream of charged particles is fed into the center of the chamber, while high, alternating energy stream is applied across the electrodes. The voltage alternately attracts and repels the charged particles being fed into the center, so that they accelerate. The magnetic field causes the particles to spiral around the chamber so that they re-encounter the accelerating voltage many times. The size of the vacuum chamber determines how much energy is accumulated in the particles (“Cyclotrons, n.d.). Medical cyclotrons produce the proton beams that are used to manufacture radioisotopes such as