Caregiver: Scan Technologies

Corinne is pictured here in a PET Scanner (Positron Emission Tomography). It’s the latest technology to detect cancer. Unlike a typical x-ray, which shoots rays at the body, then captures the shadow image the rays make behind the body, radiation in a PET scan comes from within the body. An hour before the images are captured by a couple of hundred tiny Geiger counters around the circle above, Corinne is injected with glucose that has radiation in it. Fast growing cells need lots of energy – and the sugary glucose offers that – so the irradiated glucose masses around cancer cells.

CT (Computed Tomography) Scans are also part of the regular drill to look for cancer. While a CT scanner looks similar to the PET scanner, on the inside of the central hole, there is an x-ray emitter on one side and a receiver on the opposite side; the emitter and the receiver spin around the circle, taking pictures of “slices” as the patient’s “couch” moves through the opening. A computer compiles the hundreds of x-ray pictures into images of the “slices.” CT Scans are especially effective at getting images of bone, soft tissue and blood vessels.

At one point during chemotherapy, Corinne was having problems with her eyes, so her doctor sent her for an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Image). Since MRI uses a magnetic field to do its work rather than x-rays, I was able to sit with Corinne as she had the scan. That was handy because getting an MRI scan involves lying in a long, narrow tube for an extended period of time, and Corinne is very claustrophobic. MRI is extremely loud, making hundreds of hammering sounds during the exam. It is effective at getting “slice” pictures of the brain at many different angles.