mumbai on his visit to the city over the monthend prime minister a b vajpayee will virtually inaugurate a new chapter in the field of nuclear medicine in indiafrom the highsecurity complex of bhabha atomic research centre barc the pm is scheduled to electronically cut the ribbon of the countrys first pet facility situated at barcs radiation medicine centre which is housed in tata memorial hospital parel on october 31pet or positron emission tomography crosssection will add yet another dimension to the peaceful uses of atomic energy says radiation medicine centre head dr n nair and it certainly deserves a highprofile launch say medical literature and practitioners in the cityaccording to tata hospital director katie dinshaw pet will bring us up to international standards especially in the early detection and diagnosis of cancerhowever dr nair adds that it can provide accurate diagnosis of diseases ranging from cancer to heart and brain disorders for years doctors have been searching for answers to heart diseases diabetes leukemia breast lung and prostate cancers as well as the vexing problems of alzheimers and parkinsons disease schizophrenia says dr nairit uses radioactive isotopes most commonly flourine deoxyglucoseto produce images of the organ concerned at work one gets informationin the form of 3d images on computersof the organs metabolic activity rather than just an anatomical evidence of the disease for instance in the case of a person suffering from epilepsy pet could pinpoint the damaged brain cells that trigger convulsions by emitting impulseshowever in india the device will mainly be used for cancer research glucose is used by every cell in the body but cancer cells use more of it so when you inject a tracer of fluro deoxyglucose into the bloodstream you get an image of glucose concentration all over the body explains dr nairunusual activity conveyed by heavy glucose concentration will indicate the presence of cancer he says pet scan can accurately show whether it is benign or cancerousthe pet ensemble consists of three partsthe cyclotron or producer of the radioactive isotope the radiochemistry module that attaches the pharmaceutical to this isotope for example a glucose lookalike with radioactive fluorine and the pet scanner that looks a lot like the ct scanner in the radiation medicine centre the cyclotron and radiochemistry modules will be located in the basement while the pet scanner will be on the first floorthe radioactive tracer once prepared will be transported to the pet scanner room in vials kept in lead containersaccording to dr nair the rmc also hopes to obtain a hybrid machine combining ct and pet the rs 10crore pet ensemble however has one drawbackoperational costs each wholebody pet scan costs between 2000 and 2500 in the us but such charges would be unreasonably high here i guess some kind of underwriting would be operational says dr nair moreover pet takes between 45 minutes to one hour for a scan thereby allowing only six to eight scans in a day