Positron emission tomography (PET)

Positron emission tomography — also called a PET scan — is a safe, effective and non-invasive diagnostic imaging technique that provides highly detailed images of the body. A PET scan shows metabolic changes that cannot be seen on MRI or CT scans.

How Children's Hospital Boston approaches a PET scan

The Division of Nuclear Medicine at Children's is committed to providing a safe, comfortable and child-friendly atmosphere with:

• specialized nuclear medicine physicians with expertise in interpreting PET scans in children of all ages
• certified nuclear medicine technologists with years of experience imaging children and teens
• Child Life specialists to help families prior to and during exams
• the only facility in New England that has a PET scanner dedicated solely to babies and children
• protocols that keep radiation exposure as low as reasonably achievablewhile assuring high image quality