Imaging is an extremely efficient process for accomplishing this aim, because data are presented in pictorial form to the most efficient human sensory system for search, identification, and interpretation the visual system. Recognition depends upon the type of information in the image, both in terms of interpreting what it means and how sensitive it is to identifying the presence of disease. PET provides the means for imaging the rates of biologic processes in vivo. The model permits the calculation of the rate of the process. The tracer technique continues to be one of the most sensitive and widely used methodologies for performing assays of biological systems.
PET allows the transfer of the tracer assay methodology to the living subject, particularly humans.
PET builds a bridge of communication and investigation between the basic and clinical sciences, based upon a commonality of methods used and problems studied. Natural substrates, substrate analogs, and drugs can be labeled with these radio isotopes without altering their chemical or biological properties. This allows the methods, knowledge, and interpretation of results from tracer kinetic assays used in the basic biological sciences to be applied to humans by the quantitative measurement abilities of the PET scanner.