Molecular Imaging Technology to Detect Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is a common type of cancer that affects both men and women and for which the prognosis is not very good. More people die of lung cancer annually than of any other types of cancers that affect the prostate, breast, and colon combined.

The reason for this is that lung cancers are detected almost always only at an advanced stage of the disease. Moreover, lung cancers are not easily curable. Thanks to improved technologies, doctors of today use molecular imaging studies to screen those at high risk of contracting this disease. This helps to lower the mortality rates.

Molecular Imaging for Detection of Lung Cancer

PET Scans (Positron emission tomography) and CT scans are commonly used screening methods in the Best Lung Cancer Screening Hospitals in Mumbai for detection and further treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Once the scanning of the patient is completed using these methods, the concerned radiologist would share results with the patient’s specialist physician. NSCLC patients may need to have more than one PET-CT scan depending on the treatment course. These may also include whole-body scans.

Method of using PET-CT studies

The PET and PET-CT screening studies for cancer are used to:

1. Determine the exact position of the tumor and determine the stage of cancer, i.e., the amount to which cancer has spread in the patient’s body.
2. Depending on the diagnosis, the genetic makeup of the patient and the molecular structure of the cancer present, select the most potent and suitable therapy.
3. Determine the effectiveness of the treatment by noting the patient’s response to drug therapy. The changes in the activities at the cellular levels as observed in PET-Ct images, the treatment plans may be altered.
4. Determine whether cancer has relapsed.

PET-CT Scans – advantages for patients with lung cancer

• PET-CT scanning is part of Lung Cancer tests in Mumbai and may be the best method yet to detect whether the cancer cells are actually being destroyed with the ongoing treatment, if the cancer is spreading and whether there has a been a relapse after other forms of treatment.
• PET-CT scans help to determine if the (NSCLC) cancer has spread to lymph nodes and can be used in a non-invasive manner to find out the spread of the cancer cells to the lymph nodes instead of a surgical procedure called mediastinoscopy. The tissue cells are collected from the chest cavity and examined under the microscope. The PET_CT scan is in this case used to identify those lymph nodes that may contain cancer cells.
• PET-CT scans very accurately determine whether a lung mass is cancerous and can help to avoid surgical biopsy.
• Studies have indicated that these types of molecular imaging aids have helped to alter the treatment course for about 64% of lung cancer patients.
• Some other ongoing studies and research have pointed out to the fact that the amount of FDG radiotracer absorbed by the cancer cells during a PET scan and survival rate of the patient are related. If the cancer cells absorb less FDG, the survival rate is higher.

Molecular Imaging Studies and Lung Cancer – The Future

Recent studies about the genetic and molecular mechanisms and their connection with the development of lung cancer have seen exciting developments including development of reporter-gene detection systems using imaging where genes are engineered to adhere to other cells and they are further tacked using imaging studies. Moreover, scientists are trying to image molecular markers and biological pathways that may provide clues about the progression of lung cancer and response to therapy in patients.