Florida Hospital Winter Park (see more articles like this)

The Positron Emission Mammography (PEM) scanner is a specialized form of nuclear medicine medical imaging used specifically for imaging of the breasts.  The PEM scanner isolates the breasts and focuses its imaging capabilities to a specific area, which produces a very sharp, detailed image of any abnormal tissue, such as cancerous tumors.  With PEM, doctors are able to see cancers as small as 2 millimeters, about the width of a grain of rice.

Cancer cells absorb and accumulate sugar faster than healthy tissue.  PEM works by using a glucose, or sugar, radioactive tracer to detect those cancer cells.  PEM is able to capture the cellular activity occurring at the moment of the scan within a mass or cancerous tissue.  This cutting-edge imaging technology helps find lesions that are obscured on mammograms and can identify the size, shape, and location of a suspicious mass.  The PEM is more than 90 percent accurate in identifying the mass as cancerous or not.

“We are very excited to be able to offer the most accurate imaging technology available to our patients at Winter Park Memorial Hospital,” said Dr. Anton Serafini, Florida Hospital radiologist.  “Positron emission tomography (PET scan) has been around for a number of years and is used for whole body scans to evaluate patients with known breast cancer, a history of breast cancer, or known risk factors associated with breast cancer.  Compared with whole body scans, PEM’s organ-specific, high resolution capability produces better images of small breast lesions.  This can lead to earlier diagnosis, better defined margins and better outcomes.”

Winter Park Memorial Hospital, a Florida Hospital, is a 297 licensed-bed, acute care hospital chartered in 1951 by residents of the community.  Winter Park Memorial Hospital offers a full range of services and programs including Obstetrics and a level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at The Dr. P. Phillips Baby Place, Cancer Care at the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, Winter Park, a 24-hour Emergency Department as well as the Florida Hospital Orthopaedic Institute.