This also belongs in the after treament category.

From my experience is appears that PET scans are done differently depending on where you get them.

My initial pet scan was done with a head rest and "THE" mask. For the follow up PET scan my insurance company insited that I go to another place. This is in principle no problem, except for the following:
they did not have a head rest and no setup to affix a mask. The fact that they were not set up for the mask is probably ok if not optimal but that they did not even have a head rest was troublesome. i.e. Head on a board! Needless to say that I was not impressed! However since the radioactivity was injected already there was no point in terminating this.

You want proper and symmetric positioning of the specimen and you also do not want the patient to move. Both of which may increase false positives, especially in the head and neck region. There are structures that have show a moderate uptake for normal tissue.


Any experiences with PET scan setups?

Markus

PS while looking into this, I came across a review which stated that chewing/grindig and talking resulted in visible uptake.


Partial glossectomy (25%) anterior tongue. 4/6/07/. IMRT start @5/24/07 (3x) Erbitux start/end@ 5/24/07. IMRT wider field (30x) start 6/5/07. Weekly cisplatin (2x30mg/m2), then weekly carbo- (5x180mg/m2). End of Tx 19 July 07.