If you have been diagnosed with breast cancer, your doctor may refer you for a PEM scan. PEM stands for positron emission mammography, a specialized and advanced application of PET scanning for imaging breasts and other small body parts.
The PEM scanner isolates a body part and focuses its imaging capabilities to just that area, which produces a very sharp, detailed image of diseased tissue, such as cancerous tumors. With PEM, doctors can see cancers as small as 1.5 – 2mm, about the width of a grain of rice.
Like other PET scanners, PEM uses sugar-based FDG as the radioactive tracer, which is absorbed faster by cancerous tissue. The images obtained with the PEM scanner show the size, shape and location of suspicious masses, giving physicians a “map” upon which they can base your treatment options and/or surgical plan.
Armed with this information doctors can better determine candidates for breast-conserving surgery or lumpectomy. Also, knowing the exact location and extent of the cancer guides doctors during surgery and helps to assure that they remove all suspicious tissue and thereby avoid repeat surgeries. Doctors may also use PEM during biopsy to guide the needle, to monitor treatment or to check for a recurrence of disease.
Information courtesy of Naviscan PET Systems, Inc.
Designed with patient comfort in mind, the PEM scanner uses gentle compression to isolate and immobilize.
