(August 2004) PET or Positron Emission Tomography scans have become an important aspect of medical imaging and diagnoses, allowing doctors to look into the human body as never before. PET scans are different from other medical imaging techniques because they do not actually look at the body itself. Instead, PET scans look at bodily process by detecting the decay products from radioactive tracers injected into the body. Radioactive tracers are designed to mimic naturally occurring substances and tend to deliver less radiation than an X-Ray. When the radioactive tracers decay inside the body, they release a positron, the antimatter equivalent…