PET scan for mental illness, how effictive is it?

Question

how efictive is a PET scan when it comes to indicating a mental illnes like schizophrenia? or how effictive are doctars able to diagnose scizophrenia? need your advice thanks

Answer 1

PET scan is not very effective for any mental disorder..

Doctor's are not very effective at diagnosing schizophrenia either.. If you have schizophrenia, then they will surely diagnose you with it, however if you don't have schizophrenia they may diagnose you with it anyway. There is no exact science in diagnosising schizophrenia. If there is any doubt, an MD will usually err on the side of giving you schizophrenia.

Supposedly, from what I've heard from M.D.'s, 50% of all people diagnosed with schizophrenia do not realize they have a problem.. What is unclear is how many of those 50% (is it 10%, 20%, 35%? etc.) are actually people who were simply misdiagnosed and really do not have schizophrenia, but rather some other problem.

So if your question is concerning you trying to get a second opinion regarding a schizophrenia diagnosis, it is going to be very hard if not impossible to get the diagnosis changed.. It certainly can't be done with a PET, MRI, fMRI, or SPECT scan..

Answer 2

Not very, Positron emission scanning is still relatively new and its clincal usefulness is still being evaluated.