Positron emission tomography scanning is coming to a hospital near you soon!

Positron emission tomography (PET) is still generally not available in the UK; however, there are plans to introduce a national service in England from April 2008. Plans are also at an advanced stage in Scotland and Wales. The main uses of PET are in preoperative staging of lung cancer, detection of recurrent colorectal cancer, and management of patients with lymphoma. Although these provide the bulk of the referral base, PET is also of use in specific situations in patients with less common cancers, such as head and neck cancer, gynaecological cancer, and melanoma. In its more common uses, PET has been shown to be cost effective. Positron emission tomography will play an increasing role in the evaluation of response to treatment to enable early separation of patients who are responding well to chemotherapy from those who are not responding and need to be transferred to another therapy.