Welcome!
New England PET Imaging System was established in April 2000 as New England's first community hospital-based provider of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) services. Our mission is to provide patient-focused care in a personal and friendly setting, offering the highest levels of medical care and quality service. Dr. Ruth Lim, an Associate Radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, is our Chief Medical Officer. In addition, at each of our sites, we have retained board-certified radiologists, with special training in PET and PET/CT, to interpret our studies.
All New England PET sites are accredited by the American College of Radiology (ACR). The ACR, headquartered in Reston, VA, awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards after a peer-review evaluation of the practice. Evaluations are conducted by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field.
All of our facilities operate state-of-the-art Siemens PET/CT scanners. Since opening in April 2000 we have performed more than 20,000 studies covering a very broad range of clinical indications.
Very important information for patients preparing for a PET/CT Scan can be found here.
New England PET Imaging System has five sites to serve the needs of patients within the region:
All of New England PET Imaging System sites participate in the National Oncologic PET Registry (NOPR). Under the PET Registry, essentially all cancers and indications are covered for Medicare patients. (See this page for a pdf version of the table of covered cancers and indications.)
About PET
PET is a breakthrough medical imaging technology. While tests such as CT and MRI provide information on anatomy and structure, PET examines metabolic process within the body. By focusing on the biochemistry of organs and tissues within the body, PET can often detect disease before anatomic changes result and which become evident on conventional imaging tests such as CT, MRI, or X-ray.
What is PET/CT?
PET/CT combines in one single study the functional information of PET with the anatomical information provided by a CT scan. This PET/CT information will enable your physician to pinpoint the exact location of interest and helps in making an accurate diagnosis.
PET/CTs received wide clinical acceptance for a variety of clinical applications in oncology (cancer care), cardiology, and neurology. This is further reflected in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ongoing expansion of Medicare coverage for PET/CT for the early detection, staging, and monitoring of disease.
What is a PET/CT Bone Scan?
Bone scans are now available employing PET/CT technology with the radiopharmaceutical 18F-Sodium Fluoride (NaF). Coverage is available for these bone studies for Medicare beneficiaries through the National Oncologic PET Registry (NOPR). These studies provide whole body views of the skeleton that are valuable for the detection of unsuspected osseous metastases, evaluation of known metastatic disease, circumstances requiring exclusion of bone disease prior to initiation of therapy, treatment planning, and evaluation of effectiveness of therapy.
18F-Sodium Fluoride (NaF) PET/CT studies have a number of advantages over conventional 99mTc bone studies, including increased sensitivity and specificity, ability to fuse the bone study with anatomic information gained from integrated CT, and far shorter scan times.
18F-Sodium Fluoride (NaF) PET/CT is an important tool for detecting and evaluating metastatic bone cancer. These studies are particularly useful, since some of the most prevalent cancers are commonly associated with metastatic bone disease, such as breast and prostate cancer, as well as carcinoma of the thyroid, kidney, and lung. |
