The Inside Story

Feeling under the weather? How can doctors tell if vague symptoms like fatigue and weight loss are a sign of something more sinister? Blood tests are the first step, but if the results are inconclusive a body scan is useful. PET-CT is a medical imaging technique that combines x-rays and radioactive tracers to produce an image of the internal organs. This patient was injected with a radioactive tracer that mimics glucose. It‘s normal to see the tracer accumulate in metabolically-active organs like the brain, liver and kidneys, but if it‘s seen elsewhere it can signal problems. Here the tracer was found in the spleen (brown arrow), ribs (top, red arrow) and spine (bottom, red arrow). This suggested a white blood cell disorder, which was later confirmed with a bone marrow biopsy. Combining diagnostic techniques in this way gives doctors the best chance of successfully identifying and treating illness.

Written by Sarah McLusky

Sarah McLusky

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Sarah McLusky is a freelance science education consultant. Her work varies from writing resources and managing science fairs to making rockets. Sarah used to be a ‘proper’ scientist and has a PhD in Plant Biochemistry.

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• Yvo Smulders
• VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Attribution license
• Published in PLoS ONE 8(3): e58917