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Medical Imaging
St. Helena Hospital Clearlake offers:
- MRI
- Lightspeed CT scanning
- Nuclear medicine
- PET scanning
- Radiation fluoroscopy
- Mammography
- Colonoscopy
- Bone density screening
- Other advanced imaging services for dependable diagnosis and treatment
State-of-the-art Cancer Detection Now Available at St. Helena Hospital Clearlake
Physicians at St. Helena Hospital Clearlake are now able to view cancer in a more precise way, with a state-of-the-art mobile PET/CT scanner.
The new technology enables doctors to more accurately detect cancer and pinpoint its exact location in the body. St. Helena Hospital Clearlake is the only hospital in Lake County with the new technology.
Both CT (computed tomography) and the newer PET (positron emission tomography) have added valuable dimensions to cancer diagnosis, but each has limitations. A CT scan is a series of X-rays taken sequentially along the length of the body, producing images that resemble cross sections of organs and other structures. CT gives sharp views of anatomical features and differentiates between types of soft tissue, bone, and blood vessels. The technique reveals lesions, tumors, and metastases.
PET scans, meanwhile, focus more on how structures behave than on how they look. They detect the metabolic activity of tissues how rapidly they are consuming the sugar that fuels biological growth. Cancerous tissue consumes sugar at a high rate, which shows up on PET scans as bright areas. PET can distinguish between dead scar tissue and active cancer, and detect cancers at a smaller, earlier stage than CT.
Before the development of the combined PET/CT scanner several years ago, patients would have a CT scan on one machine and a PET on another. Imaging experts would then compare the images, with the CT providing the physical landmarks for precisely locating the PET findings.
According to St. Helena Hospital Clearlake and St. Helena Hospital radiologist David Racker, MD, PET/CT scans will greatly decrease the time to diagnose what is or isn't cancer, Not only will the community have one of the most state-of-the-art cancer detection scans available locally, but we can now diagnose cancer in minutes compared to days.
PET/CT also solves another limitation of current cancer care which is the difficulty of quickly assessing how well a therapy is working, said Racker. Expanding the use of PET/CT technology can provide early and accurate assessment of a tumors response to a particular therapy allowing physicians to better tailor a patients treatment.
St. Helena Hospital Clearlake President & CEO, Carrie Luyster said, "Having this state of the art technology in a mobile configuration allows St. Helena Hospital Clearlake to meet community needs by offering a state-of-the-art exam to patients in our region which is otherwise only offered at larger, metropolitan hospitals."
For more information on PET/CT scanning, contact your physician.
St. Helena Hospital Clearlake
Medical Imaging
15630 18th Avenue, Clearlake
707-995-5760
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