With the increasing lifestyle changes, incidents of heart disease reports are also on the rise. Heart diseases can be life threatening if not detected on time. Timely detection and treatment can play a crucial role in the cure of heart disease. When it comes to timely detection, PET scans can be the ideal choice.
Leading PET CTScan Centre Explains A Cardiac Scan
The workings of a PET scan are a mystery to everyday people. To help understand the procedure and internal operation of the machine, a top centre for pet ct scan in Chennai has explained it. A cardiac PET scan is an investigation of the heart and how it is functioning. The gadget uses a radioactive substance which is injected into the body and then utilises it to recognise the modifications that happen to a tissue when there is a disease or ailment.
For the PET scan to take place, the patient is given a substance known as a tracer. This substance, generally, is made of a chemical found naturally in the body such as fluorine, glucose, oxygen or nitrogen. The chemical is tagged (or attached) with a radioactive atom. For a body PET scan, the tracer is most often an equivalent of sugar. For a cardiac PET scan, the tracer comes in the category of ammonia. In both cases, radioactive material is also used.
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What Comes Next In A PET CT Scan In Chennai?
Once inside the body, the tracer breaks downs and releases waves which are detected by the scanner. The waves are converted into electrical signals so that a computer can read and analyse them. Using a program on a computer, the signals are transformed into images. These pictures are of the targeted tissue, in this case, the heart. The functioning of the heart is in colour codes. Different shades of colour and the brightness of them tell at what level the organ is functioning.
For example, in the case of cancerous cells, the colours are brighter in the PET scan when compared to healthy heart tissue. It happens because cancer cells take up more of the tracer than healthy tissue which means there is more of the substance.
What Do The Machines In A CT Scan Center Look Like?
When you enter a pet ct scan centre, you see a big apparatus that appears like a donut. This machine is the scanner. It has a movable table attached to it which enters the scanning ring. Commonly, initial scans of the patient are taken first. Then the tracer is administered to the body intravenously. After the injection, the person has to lie still for thirty to 90 minutes. This time allows the tracer to travel to all organs.
After the tracer has accumulated in the body, new scans are taken. This part of the scan can be as long as two hours. For the entire 120 minutes, the patient has to lie motionless. Any movement results in hazy and unclear pictures. Once the imaging is done, there are no special precautions that should be taken. The only recommendation is to drink lots of fluid to promote the flushing of the tracer out of the body.
