PET-CT reporting, by nuclear medicine physicians
5C Network reports PET-CT studies remotely for centres across India through its Nuclear Medicine Centre of Excellence, led by Dr. Ajit Shinto. Every FDG, PSMA and DOTA PET-CT is read and signed by a credentialed nuclear medicine physician under a written minimum reporting standard, structured to PERCIST, Lugano, PSMA-RADS or SSTR-RADS, and delivered in one of three tiers: Standard, Premium (Detailed) with scan quality indicators and reference-organ SUVmax, or Advanced TBR (tumour-board-ready).
Clinical lead: Dr. Ajit S. Shinto ·
PET-CT studies we report
FDG PET-CT
Whole-body oncology: staging, restaging, surveillance and response assessment
PSMA PET-CT
Prostate cancer, reported with PSMA-RADS
DOTA / SSTR PET-CT
Neuroendocrine tumours, reported with SSTR-RADS
Cardiac and brain PET-CT
Regional FDG studies for the heart and brain
What a good PET-CT report answers
A PET-CT report answers three questions for the treating team: how much disease there is and where, whether it has changed since the last scan, and what should happen next. A report that only lists hot spots leaves the oncologist to do that work.
The Centre writes to those questions. The level of detail depends on who will read the report, from a diagnostic centre's referring physician to a hospital tumour board.
Why remote PET-CT reporting works
PET-CT reads well remotely: the study is digital, the prior studies travel with it, and the interpretation needs a specialist, not someone standing at the scanner. What is scarce is the specialist. India has more than 500 PET-CT scanners and about 800 nuclear medicine physicians. A remote model lets one national panel serve centres that could never hire a nuclear medicine physician full-time.
Three tiers of PET-CT report
FDG, SSTR and PSMA PET-CT. Each tier includes everything in the one before it.
For imaging and diagnostic centres
Standard
- Whole-body PET-CT read and signed by a credentialed nuclear medicine physician
- Staging, restaging and follow-up studies
- An AI-generated TNM staging summary statement; on comparative studies, a response-criteria summary instead
For hospitals
Premium (Detailed)
- Everything in Standard
- TNM staging report with explanation, or on comparative studies a response-criteria report set out as a table against the prior scan
- Scan quality indicators: blood sugar at injection, injection time, scan time
- Reference-organ SUVmax for brain, mediastinal blood pool, liver and bladder, so the next scan is genuinely comparable
For cancer centres and tumour boards
Advanced TBR (tumour-board-ready)
- Everything in Premium
- A confidence level stated against each finding
- A tumour board FAQ that answers what the board will ask: which site to biopsy, what a borderline finding means, what the next line looks like
| Level | Best for | What the report contains |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Imaging and diagnostic centres |
|
| Premium (Detailed) | Hospitals |
|
| Advanced TBR (tumour-board-ready) | Cancer centres and tumour boards |
|
Response criteria, by cancer
- PERCIST
- Metabolic response of solid tumours on FDG PET-CT
- Lugano / Deauville
- Staging and response in lymphoma
- PSMA-RADS
- Prostate cancer on PSMA PET-CT
- SSTR-RADS
- Neuroendocrine tumours on somatostatin-receptor (DOTA) PET-CT
- TNM / FIGO
- Anatomical staging written into the report, by cancer type
AI works inside the read as decision support: staging and response summaries, SUV quantification and comparison with the prior study, so the classification is produced rather than recalled. It assists the physician, who reads and signs every report. 5C claims no regulatory clearance for nuclear medicine AI.
Seven questions to ask about your PET-CT reporting
A self-check for any head of nuclear medicine or centre owner.
- 1
When your nuclear medicine physician is on leave, what happens to that day’s scans?
The FDG decays whether or not anyone reads the scan. The dose is gone, the slot is gone, and the patient is rescheduled or lost.
- 2
If one patient is scanned three times across a treatment course, are the three reports directly comparable?
Response assessment only works when the same standard is applied at every time point.
- 3
Who reviews your complex cases? Is a second read available at all?
A single reader means no peer review and no way to know where that reader’s ceiling sits.
- 4
How much of your physician’s week goes to typing routine whole-body reports?
As against therapy, clinics, tumour board and building the department.
- 5
Do your staging reports carry TNM, your lymphoma reports Lugano, your restaging reports a formal response tool?
Reports without them do not survive scrutiny at tumour board.
- 6
Does anyone check whether the study itself was fit to interpret?
Blood sugar at injection, uptake time and scan time are rarely recorded, so non-comparable SUVs get compared anyway.
- 7
If you wanted to double PET volume next year, what would you do about reading capacity?
Today the answer is another hire: a large fixed cost with a lead time of many months.
If three or more of these give you pause, the constraint in your centre is reading capacity, not the scanner.
Frequently asked questions
Who reports PET-CT scans at 5C Network?
Can 5C report PSMA PET-CT?
Can 5C report DOTA / Ga-68 DOTATATE PET-CT?
What is an Advanced TBR (tumour-board-ready) PET-CT report?
What are scan quality indicators, and why do they matter?
Does the report compare with previous scans?
How do we send PET-CT studies to 5C?
Also see gamma camera and SPECT reporting, and Dr. Ajit Shinto's profile.
Book 30 minutes with Dr. Ajit Shinto
Tell us where to reach you — a 5C radiology consultant responds within one business day.
