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Cancer
Cancer comes in a variety of forms and occurs when cells in the body begin
to grow chaotically. Normal cells grow, divide, and produce more cells to keep
the body healthy and functioning as it should.
Sometimes, on occasion this grow and divide process goes wrong and cells keep
dividing, producing new cells that are not needed. The mass of extra cells that
is produced forms a growth or tumor, which can be benign or malignant.
- Benign tumors: Theses are not cancer. Benign tumours are often removed and,
in most cases, they do not come back. Cells in benign tumors do not spread
to other parts of the body and benign tumors are rarely life threatening.
- Malignant tumors are cancerous. Cells in malignant tumors are abnormal and
divide without control or order invading and destroying cells and the tissue
around them.
PET/CT is an excellent tool for helping diagnose and plan the treatment of
cancerous growths in many areas of the body.
Providing a diagnosis tool that can offer surgeons earlier diagnosis of tumours,
accurate staging and an extremely accurate location of the tumour, PET/CT scans
are used in the diagnosis and treatments of the following types of cancers in
the body:
Breast cancer is tumors that begin in the breast tissue. Breast cancer is the
most common cancer among women, other than skin cancer.
The esophagus is the muscular tube that connects the throat to the stomach.
Cancers of the esophagus start from its inner layer and grow outward.
A devastating cancer that affects a woman’s cervix
Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer
There are two main types of lymphomas. Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's
lymphomas. In lymphoma the lymph nodes become enlarged and the cancer can spread
through the lymph system.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women and
may take many years to develop. Once the lung cancer occurs, cancer cells can
break away and spread to other parts of the body
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer both in men and in women
and develops slowly over a period of several years
Head and neck cancer is a general description that is used for a number of
different types malignant tumors that occur in the mouth, throat, sinuses and
nasal spaces, the larynx, salivary glands, and the cervical lymph nodes
Ovarian cancer starts in a woman's ovaries and accounts for nearly 4% of all
cancers among women, ranking second among the gynecological cancers.
PET/CT can help with the above cancers in the following ways:
- Provide earlier and more accurate diagnosing, staging and location of tumour
- Help surgeon to develop treatment options for dealing with the tumour
- Help postoperative follow-up diagnosis
- Help to detect distant cancerous cell growths that are not normally seen
by other methods of imaging.
- Aid the identification of resistant cancers much earlier than before
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