WHEN Archer Weaver was four months old, a tumour "the size of a fist" was discovered in his pelvis.
There was "no time" for him to travel to Sydney to undergo a PET scan. He needed surgery, and fast.
"They just needed to get it out, as soon as possible, so the doctors relied on CT and MRI scans for the surgery," Archer's mother, Kait Hamilton, said.
"The oncologist said they were considering getting a PET scan, they would have liked to, but there just wasn't enough time."
But from Thursday, John Hunter and John Hunter Children's Hospital will have a $3.8 million PET scanner on site.
It will be the Hunter's second public hospital PET scanner, and the first in the region to be used for children.
"When you first have a diagnosis, it is already so overwhelming, without the stress of having to uproot, go to Sydney and navigate a new hospital for a scan," Ms Hamilton said.
"This will definitely make life that little bit easier for families going through this process."
Archer, now 15 months old, was diagnosed with "undifferentiated sarcoma".
He has been through six months of intensive chemotherapy, and will have "maintenance" treatment until July.
"His particular type of cancer has a high chance of recurrence. So we'll just have to wait and see," Ms Hamilton said. "Fingers crossed.
"He will need follow up scans every three months to keep an eye on things.
"This new scanner will mean things can be done here.
"You can just go down the hallway to get the imaging and the information the doctors need."
Dr Natalie Rutherford, the clinical director of nuclear medicine for Hunter New England Health's imaging service, said while there was a PET scanner at the Calvary Mater, they didn't have the scope to sedate a child for a scan. She said the Calvary Mater scanner was also in very high demand.
"It was getting to the point where the Mater scanner was so busy, it was running from 8am in the morning to 7.30pm/8pm at night, just to get all the local scans done," Dr Rutherford said.
"Having a second scanner means we can do a lot more scanning on a single day, rather than everything going over time.
"But ultimately, doing it at the John Hunter now means we can image children.
"In the past, the whole family would probably have to stay in Sydney, potentially for several days, to get their scans, which is a big deal having to do that as a family when you're already dealing with a horrible diagnosis.
"This means you'll have your family member being treated appropriately, you've got them being treated and imaged locally - so you don't have to go anywhere else, and you can be treated quickly."
The local PET scanner would mean patients get more rapid, appropriate treatment.
She said the sooner you get an image that tells you where the cancer is, the sooner you can move on to treatment.
"If you do anatomical imaging, like MRI and CT, they are very good, but you are only seeing what the structures look like, not seeing what's in those structures. But PET offers that advantage," she said. "In a PET scan we give people what is basically a radioactive sugar that is taken up by cells that are really hungry, and cancer cells are really hungry, and we can see where they are.
"The beauty of this scanner is that we can use ultra low-dose scans. So we can do fantastic images on small people, and they don't have to go to Sydney."
