Pune: PET Scan to aid cancer patients in Sassoon Hospital

Pune: With an aim to extend affordable healthcare to cancer patients in the city, a PET-CT scan facility has been introduced by the BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital.

This facility is considered to be the first in the state to be established at a government hospital.

PET-CT scan is a procedure that combines the pictures from a positron emission tomography (PET) scan and a computed tomography (CT) scan. The PET and CT scans are done at the same time with the same machine. The combined scans give more detailed pictures of areas inside the body than either scan gives by itself.

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Therefore, the rates of these scans can range from 10,000 to 15,000 in private hospitals or centres depending on the test specification. Poor patients are usually excluded from those benefits due to the high rates.

In view of this, Sassoon hospital will provide facilities at affordable prices to poor patients not just in the Pune district but also in the neighbouring Satara, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Kolhapur districts.

The scans are performed to determine whether cancer has spread throughout the body or has returned after treatment and to evaluate the prognosis of cancer.

Dr Ibrahim Ansari, associate professor of radiology and co-ordinator for PET-CT at Sassoon, told TOI, "We have launched both the PET-CT scan machine and a Spect machine with gamma cameras. A team of five is deployed to run tests and handle both machines."

BJ Medical College dean Dr Sanjiv Thakur said, "We can start all 49 tests with this machine. The rates range from Rs240 for EC/MAG3 Renogram to Rs5,800 for FDG PET/CT whole body [contrast]. The costs of these tests at private facilities could be three times more. We are the only state-run medical college to have this facility."

A PET scan is a type of nuclear medicine imaging. Nuclear medicine uses small and safe amounts of radioactive material, called radiotracers, given through an IV.

Unlike other imaging techniques, PET scans focus on processes and molecular activity within the body. This gives them the potential to find disease in its earliest stages.

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