With the improvement of people’s health awareness and the widespread use of low-dose spiral CT in general physical examinations, more and more pulmonary nodules are discovered during physical examinations. However, the difference is that for some people, doctors will still recommend the patients to make an enhance CT examination. Not only that, PET-CT has gradually entered everyone’s field of vision in clinical practice. What is the difference between them? how to choose?
The so-called enhanced CT is to inject an iodine-containing contrast agent drug from the vein into the blood vessel and then conduct a CT scan. This can detect lesions that cannot be found in ordinary CT scans. It can also determine the blood supply of the lesions and increase the number of disease diagnosis and treatment options. amount of relevant information required.
So what kind of lesions require enhanced CT? In fact, enhanced CT scanning is very valuable for solid nodules above 10 mm or larger hilar or mediastinal masses.
So what is PET-CT? Simply put, PET-CT is the combination of PET and CT. CT is the computerized tomography technology. This examination is now well-known to every household. As soon as a person lies down, the machine scans it, and they can know what the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys look like.
The scientific name of PET is positron emission tomography. Before doing PET-CT, everyone must inject a special contrast agent called 18F-FDGA, whose full name is “chlorodeoxyglucose”. Unlike normal glucose, although it can enter cells through glucose transporters, it is retained in cells because it cannot participate in subsequent reactions.
The purpose of a PET scan is to evaluate the ability of different cells to consume glucose, because glucose is the most important energy source for human metabolism. The more glucose ingested, the stronger the metabolic ability. One of the important characteristics of malignant tumors is that the metabolic level is significantly higher than that of normal tissues. Simply put, malignant tumors “eat more glucose” and are easily discovered by PET-CT. Therefore, it is recommended to do whole-body PET-CT because it is more cost-effective. The biggest role of PET-CT is to determine whether the tumor has metastasized, and the sensitivity can be as high as 90% or more.
For patients with pulmonary nodules, if the doctor judges that the nodule is highly malignant, it is recommended that the patient undergo a PET-CT examination. Once the tumor is found to have metastasized, it is directly related to the patient’s subsequent treatment, so the importance of PET-CT cannot be overstated. And it’s a metaphor. This is one of the main reasons for PET-CT. There is another type of patient who also needs PET-CT: when it is difficult to judge benign and malignant nodules or space-occupying lesions, PET-CT is also a very important auxiliary diagnostic method. Because malignant lesions “eat more glucose.”
All in all, PET-CT can determine whether there is a tumor and whether the tumor has metastasized throughout the body, while enhanced CT is often used in the auxiliary diagnosis and treatment of large lung tumors and mediastinal tumors. But no matter what kind of examination, the purpose is to help doctors make better judgments so as to provide better treatment plans for patients.
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As we all know, the development of the medical imaging industry is inseparable from the development of a series of medical equipment – contrast agent injectors and their supporting consumables – that are widely used in this field. In China, which is famous for its manufacturing industry, there are many manufacturers famous at home and abroad for the production of medical imaging equipment, including LnkMed. Since its establishment, LnkMed has been concentrating on the field of high-pressure contrast agent injectors. LnkMed’s engineering team is led by a Ph.D. with more than ten years of experience and is deeply engaged in research and development. Under his guidance, the CT single head injector, CT double head injector, MRI contrast agent injector, and Angiography high-pressure contrast agent injector are designed with these features: the strong and compact body, the convenient and intelligent operation interface, the complete functions, high safety, and durable design. We can also provide syringes and tube sthat are compatible with those famous brands of CT,MRI,DSA injectors With their sincere attitude and professional strength, all employees of LnkMed sincerely invite you to come and explore more markets together.
Post time: Jan-24-2024
