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By Mayo Clinic staffAlthough a radioactive substance is used during a PET scan, the amount of radiation that you're exposed to is too low to affect the normal processes of your body.
However, this radioactive material might harm the fetus of a pregnant woman or the infant of a woman who is breast-feeding. You and your doctor can discuss risk to the fetus or infant versus the reasoning and benefit of having a PET scan performed.
- Positron emission tomography - Computed tomography (PET/CT). Radiological Society of North America. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=PET. Accessed Feb. 24, 2009.
- What is PET? Society of Nuclear Medicine. http://interactive.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=972. Accessed Feb. 24, 2009.