PET-CT guided radiotherapy for monitoring and treatment of cancer patients by doctors in Apollo Hospital. This PET-CT guided radiotherapy procedure was performed for the first time in India. Apollo Cancer Hospital is one of the first hospitals in the country with a PET-CT guided radiotherapy technology, Director, Vijay Anand Reddy reported in a news conference. PET is a Positron Emission Tomography and CT scan is a Computerized Tomography, by combining these two techniques, which are used as a standard imaging techniques, used to identification and localization of cancer. The highly sensitive PET scan picks up the metabolic signal of actively growing cancer cells in the body and the CT scan provides a detailed picture of the internal anatomy that reveals the size, shape and location of abnormal cancerous growths.
By using the PET-CT, the cancer is localized and the radiotherapy is coupled with the procedure, Radiotherapy sends radiation to the scanned and marked site leading to killing and destroying of cancer cells and tissues by radiation. The surrounding tissues to the cancer are also destroyed in order to reduce spreading cancer cells, which may lead to metastasis."The drawback of routine CT scan for radiotherapy planning is that many times it becomes difficult to accurately know the extension and activity of the tumor and also differentiate between tumor tissue and normal tissue," Dr. Vijay Anand Reddy said.
The Apollo Cancer Hospital here claims to be the only hospital in the country with the PET-CT guided radiotherapy technology.
Source: IANS
