AstraRad provides remote interpretation of PET-CT, SPECT-CT, and general nuclear medicine gamma studies, read by board-certified, fellowship-trained subspecialists in oncologic and nuclear imaging from a 240-radiologist panel. Routine nuclear studies return as final signed reports inside 24 hours, urgent inside 4 hours, and STAT inside 1 hour, with a median STAT turnaround of 28 minutes and 99.4% SLA compliance over the trailing 12 months. Pricing is per report, with no minimums, no subscriptions, and no platform fees.
Nuclear medicine is the modality most imaging centers struggle to cover. The reader pool is small, local coverage is fragile, and most teleradiology groups either exclude PET-CT entirely or treat it as an occasional add-on. AstraRad reads nuclear studies as a core service line, on the same 24/7/365 infrastructure that delivers 600,000 reads a year across all twelve study types.
Send one study a month or ten thousand. Studies arrive by DICOM from your PACS or through portal upload, with no integration project, and reports deliver back over HL7 or FHIR into the systems your clinicians already use.
Oncology PET-CT reads: staging, restaging, and treatment response
FDG PET-CT carries more downstream consequence than almost any other study an imaging center produces. A staging read determines whether a patient is a surgical candidate. A restaging read after two cycles of therapy determines whether that therapy continues. These are not studies to hand to a generalist between chest X-rays.
AstraRad routes every PET-CT to a subspecialist credentialed in oncologic and nuclear imaging. Reports address the questions oncologists actually act on:
- Initial staging with anatomic correlation on the CT component, not a metabolic read floating free of anatomy
- Restaging and treatment response assessment, with explicit comparison against prior studies when you send them
- Surveillance reads that distinguish post-treatment change from recurrence
- Incidental findings on the CT portion documented and flagged, not ignored because the indication was metabolic
Every report is a final signed read. There is no preliminary-then-overread cycle, so your referring oncologists get one report they can take into a tumor board.
Quality is measured, not asserted: 1 in 20 AstraRad reports is independently double-read, and the major discrepancy rate runs under 0.3%, tracked monthly. For high-consequence oncologic imaging, that audit trail is the difference between a vendor claim and a quality program your accreditation reviewers can inspect. Our SLA and quality page publishes the methodology.
Cardiac PET and SPECT-CT interpretation
Cardiac nuclear studies route to readers with cardiac imaging subspecialty training, not to whoever is next in a general queue. Coverage includes:
- Myocardial perfusion SPECT and SPECT-CT, with attenuation-corrected reads where your protocol supports it
- Cardiac PET perfusion and viability studies
- General SPECT-CT across bone, parathyroid, thyroid, and infection imaging, correlated against the CT component
The same subspecialty routing applies across the rest of the gamma camera worklist: bone scans, thyroid uptake and scan, HIDA, renal scans, gastric emptying, lung ventilation-perfusion. If your facility acquires it, a credentialed reader on our panel signs it.
For facilities that also generate acute volume, the same platform covers your CT and MRI worklists. Many nuclear clients start with PET-CT and add STAT CT reads or overflow reporting once the workflow is proven.
Who interprets your nuclear medicine studies?
Every nuclear study is signed by a board-certified, fellowship-trained subspecialist from AstraRad's 240-radiologist panel, matched to the study by modality and body part. Oncologic and nuclear imaging is one of our named subspecialties, alongside neuro, MSK, body, cardiac, breast, pediatric, chest, and emergency radiology, so PET-CT is read by physicians who read it every day rather than as a sideline.
The signing radiologist and their credentials appear on every report. When you evaluate any nuclear reading vendor, ask for exactly that: named readers, their board certification and fellowship training in nuclear or oncologic imaging, and the state licenses they hold. AstraRad radiologists are licensed in the state where your patients are located, which is the compliance standard that matters for teleradiology. Our guide to choosing a teleradiology company covers the full credentialing checklist.
Coverage runs 24/7/365 across 12 time zones. A weekend PET-CT does not wait for Monday, and an overnight V/Q for suspected PE gets the same priority triage as an overnight CT angiogram.
How fast are nuclear medicine and PET-CT reads returned?
Nuclear studies run on the same three contractual tiers as every other AstraRad study type. The tier is your choice per study, and the priority multiplier is printed on the rate card, so escalating a single case never requires a phone call or a renegotiation.
| Tier | Contractual turnaround | Typical nuclear use |
|---|---|---|
| STAT | Under 1 hour (median 28 minutes) | V/Q for suspected PE, acute HIDA, urgent perfusion |
| Urgent | Under 4 hours | Same-day oncology decisions, pre-surgical PET-CT |
| Routine | Under 24 hours | Staging and surveillance PET-CT, bone scans, scheduled SPECT |
Compliance is audited, not estimated: 99.4% of reports came back inside their SLA over the trailing 12 months. Most PET-CT volume is appropriately routine, and a signed subspecialist report inside 24 hours is faster than many facilities get from part-time local nuclear coverage.
Capacity is not a constraint. The panel carries headroom for 25,000 additional studies per month, and a backlog of 8,000 studies clears in under 30 days. If your nuclear reader just resigned and three weeks of PET-CT is sitting unread, that is a solved problem, not a crisis.
What does a PET-CT or nuclear medicine read cost?
AstraRad prices every study per report. No minimums, no subscriptions, and no platform fees, with the priority multiplier printed on the rate card. PET-CT and nuclear medicine gamma are line items on the same rate card as CT, MRI, mammography, ultrasound, and X-ray, so a mixed worklist prices predictably.
For context, the few vendors that publish nuclear pricing list general nuclear medicine reads starting in the high 30s of dollars per study, with PET-CT priced meaningfully higher to reflect its complexity; treat those as industry-typical figures, not AstraRad rates. Our teleradiology cost guide breaks down how per-report pricing compares across modalities and against per-click and subscription models.
AstraRad quotes rates against your actual volume and study mix. Request a rate card through our contact page and you will have it within one business day, with the priority multiplier for STAT and urgent work printed on the card. Details on the pricing model are on the pricing page.
Getting your first nuclear study read
Setup is deliberately unremarkable. Point a DICOM destination at AstraRad from your PACS, or upload through the portal for low-volume sites; there is no integration project between you and your first signed report. The platform is HIPAA and GDPR compliant and DICOM conformant, with HL7 and FHIR report delivery when you want results flowing straight into your RIS or EHR.
Most nuclear clients start the same way: a handful of PET-CT studies to validate report quality against their own readers, then routine volume, then the rest of the modality mix. There is no minimum commitment forcing the sequence. Request a rate card and send the first study when you are ready.