September 23, 2020 – Guadalupe Regional Medical Center (GRMC) announces its collaboration with Shared Medical Services (SMS) to provide mobile digital positron emission tomography (PET) / computed tomography (CT) unit. This investment in new technology will help physicians better understand, track and treat patients with a powerful new diagnostic imaging system known as PET/CT.

“This mobile digital PET/CT collaboration will dramatically improve patient access to state-of-the-art imaging tests in our community”, says GRMC Director of Imaging Services, JD Davis. “SMS operates a certified mobile fleet of diagnostic imaging vehicles, to include the fully outfitted state-of-the-art digital PET/CT imaging equipment. We look forward to this relationship and the overall positive impact it will have to the GRMC patients that will benefit from this service.”

A PET/CT scan is a noninvasive, painless medical imaging procedure that only takes about 30 minutes. Along with providing better imaging data, it notably increases patient comfort and convenience by reducing the number of scanning sessions a patient must undergo. The combined PET/CT machine allows physicians to rapidly perform both scans in one session without having to move the patient. This means physicians can precisely overlay the metabolic data of the PET scan and the detailed anatomic data of the CT scan to pinpoint the location and stage of tumors.

PET/CT also provides physicians with information about the body’s chemistry, cell function, and location of disease – information not available through just CT, MRI, X-ray, or physical examination alone. Unlike CT or MRI, which look at anatomy or body structure, PET/CT studies body function or the biology of diseases.

Clinical research has shown that in comparison to a PET scan alone, PET/CT technology provides new information that can alter a patient’s treatment plan to better target the cancer in approximately one-third of cases.