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Wales Research and Diagnostic PET Imaging Centre

Clinical services

We provide a routine clinical positron emission tomography (PET) scanning service for approximately 2.4 million patients in Wales.

Our PET scans are unique because they provide functional information which can make them very sensitive to early stages of diseases, especially various types of cancer as well as brain diseases such as epilepsy and dementia.

Our partners

We work in partnership with Health Boards in Wales and health professionals from:

  • Abertawe Bro Morganwg
  • Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
  • Cardiff and Vale University Health Board
  • Cwm Taff University Health Board
  • Hywel Dda
  • Powys

We also provide a worldwide service for patients who are willing to self-fund their scan or have private healthcare insurance.

Our patient services

If you're a GP or a consultant, you can refer your patients to us for a range of clinical services:

The Welsh Healthcare Specialised Services Committee (WHSSC) commissions a routine diagnostic PET imaging service from us on behalf of the Welsh NHS.

We can provide sensitive diagnostic imaging for a range of cancer types such as:

  • anal
  • colorectal
  • gynae
  • head and neck
  • lung
  • lymphoma
  • oesophageal
  • prostrate
  • cancer of unknown origin.

As part of the drive to provide a Welsh NHS epilepsy service, we received funding to begin a routine epilepsy PET scanning service.

As a result, patients no longer have to travel to London for their PET scan. We currently provided around 25 scans per annum as part of this national service.

Due to the limited provision of PET scanners in the South West of England, paediatric patients from Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall used to have to travel to London for their PET scans.

We are pleased to announce that we are now the regional paediatric PET centre for the South West of England and provide a routine scanning service for NHS England's paediatric patients.

We routinely perform 20-30 scans per annum for NHS England.

Primary prostate cancer can be detected with moderate sensitivity using PET/CT and [(18)F]-labeled choline derivates.

At the present time, [(18)F]-choline PET/CT is not recommended in the primary setting, but may be utilised in clinically suspected prostate cancer with repeatedly negative prostate biopsies, in preparation of a focused re-biopsy.

Promising results have been obtained for the use of PET/CT with [(18)F]-labeled choline derivates in patients with biochemical recurrence.

The detection rate of choline PET/CT for local, regional, and distant recurrence in patients with a biochemical recurrence shows a linear correlation with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) value at the time of imaging and reaches about 75% in patients with PSA > 3 ng/ml. Even at PSA values below 1 ng/ml, the recurrence can be diagnosed with choline PET/CT in approximately one-third of the patients.

Request a scan

To request a PET imaging scan, please download and fill in our PET CT referral form. Please email all completed referral forms to petic.cardiff@wales.nhs.uk

All referrals must be made by a registered GP or consultant.

PET CT Scan Referral Form

PET CT Scan referral form.

Download document (Word, 237.5 KB)

If this document cannot be read by your assistive software, you can request an accessible version by emailing web@cardiff.ac.uk. Please include the assistive tools you use and the format you require.

Individual Patient Funding Requests

Occasionally, a PET/CT scan is required which falls outside of the Welsh NHS-funded agreement. If this is the case, then you can seek approval for Individual Patient Funding Requests (IPFR) direct to the Welsh NHS.