Hi, to find out where cancer cells are located, doctors injects you radioactive dye which is made of sugar. Cancer cells love sugar and they process it much more than normal cells. Thats why they are visible on PET scan. But what makes processing sugar visible on PET scan?
If you take a look on PET scan images, some organs are always visible like a brain. How do doctors distinquish what is cancer on brain and what is brain itself?
Thank you.
In: 2
The glucose will be taken up by the most ACTIVE cells in the body. Cancer cells generally have their cellular growth and division amped up to 11 so they’re hungry, so they use sugar faster, so they concentrate the radioactive sugar
some is going to be used by other cells, sure, but the rapidly-dividing cancer cells will use more or do it in places that they shouldn’t be, and show up easier on the scan
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