Medicare expands coverage of PET.(Brief Article)

2002 MAY 16 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced Medicare will cover positron emission tomography (PET), a high-tech diagnostic tool, in the management of care for patients with breast cancer.

When a woman has been diagnosed with breast cancer, PET can serve as a means of evaluating the extent of the disease and assist doctors in determining the response to treatment in women with severe disease.

"Through this new coverage, Medicare is offering an important additional weapon in the fight against breast cancer," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. "PET technology can give physicians treating breast cancer patients potentially life-saving information not provided by traditional imaging."

Approximately 90,000 Medicare beneficiaries are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.

Under this new policy, Medicare will cover PET full-and-partial ring scanners as an adjunct to standard imaging modalities for:

* staging patients with distant metastasis or restaging patients with locoregional recurrence or metastasis, and

* monitoring tumor response to treatment for women with locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer