Newborns benefit from PET scans
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=159681&TICK=CHOP&STORY=/www/story/01-30-2007/0004515688&EDATE=Jan+30,+2007
In this article, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) discusses their use of PET (positron-emission tomography) scans to diagnose and pinpoint a type of congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare imbalance of insulin in newborns. From looking for more information on this condition, I found that CHOP is the only center in the United States that can conduct tests for this condition and is foremost in its research to find ways to avoid a near or total pancreatectomy, the common treatment of the disease, which can lead to diabetes. Congenital hyperinsulinism is the over secretion of insulin by beta cells in the pancreas at the wrong time. It is an inherited condition. In the past to diagnose it, doctors had to measure insulin collected from different veins throughout the baby's body, which is extremely difficult and painful given the size and age of the patient. This new technique uses a PET scan to see if the disease is localized to lesions on the pancreas or spread throughout the organ. If it is localized, it saves the patient from having to undergo a pancreatectomy because the doctors can just remove the lesions. The PET scans uses 18F-fluoro-L-dihydroxyphenylalanine, or [18F]-DOPA which binds to these tiny lesions making them appear on the body scanner screen so surgeons can know what to remove. The initial findings of using this method are very promising in it diagnosed 23 out of 24 patients correctly, and of the 11 patients with the localized condition it was 100% accurate.
In this article, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) discusses their use of PET (positron-emission tomography) scans to diagnose and pinpoint a type of congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare imbalance of insulin in newborns. From looking for more information on this condition, I found that CHOP is the only center in the United States that can conduct tests for this condition and is foremost in its research to find ways to avoid a near or total pancreatectomy, the common treatment of the disease, which can lead to diabetes. Congenital hyperinsulinism is the over secretion of insulin by beta cells in the pancreas at the wrong time. It is an inherited condition. In the past to diagnose it, doctors had to measure insulin collected from different veins throughout the baby's body, which is extremely difficult and painful given the size and age of the patient. This new technique uses a PET scan to see if the disease is localized to lesions on the pancreas or spread throughout the organ. If it is localized, it saves the patient from having to undergo a pancreatectomy because the doctors can just remove the lesions. The PET scans uses 18F-fluoro-L-dihydroxyphenylalanine, or [18F]-DOPA which binds to these tiny lesions making them appear on the body scanner screen so surgeons can know what to remove. The initial findings of using this method are very promising in it diagnosed 23 out of 24 patients correctly, and of the 11 patients with the localized condition it was 100% accurate.
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