Nuclear Medicine Archives

Philips Shows Off Vereos All-Digital PET/CT System at RSNA 2013

by Wouter Stomp on Dec 3, 2013

Vereos Philips Shows Off Vereos All Digital PET/CT System at RSNA 2013Philips has introduced its Vereos PET/CT fully digital positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging system at RSNA in Chicago this week. The newly FDA cleared Vereos uses digital photon counters instead of traditional analog detectors, which should greatly increase image quality.

digital PET scanner Philips Shows Off Vereos All Digital PET/CT System at RSNA 2013

The PET detector captures pairs of photons that are emitted from the body during decay of an injected radiotracer. The Vereos uses digital photon counting enabled by all-digital silicon photomultiplier detectors instead of traditional analog ones. According to Philips, advantages of this technique include an approximately two-times increase in sensitivity gain, volumetric resolution, and quantitative accuracy compared to analog systems.

Some of the benefits of the system according to the product page:

High image quality at low dose with iDose

Shortest bore in the industry

Integrated ambient lighting

Enhanced collaboration

Improved treatment planning

Increased diagnostic confidence

Faster workflows

Press release: Philips unveils breakthrough imaging innovations at RSNA 2013…

Product page: Philips Vereos PET/CT…

Nuclear Medicine / Oncology / Radiology

Siemens Symbia Intevo xSPECT SPECT/CT System Receives FDA Clearance

by Wouter Stomp on Sep 9, 2013
Siemens Symbia Intevo xSPECT SPECT/CT System Receives FDA Clearance

Siemens has received FDA approval for its xSPECT system, a SPECT/CT system that fuses SPECT and CT data into a single dataset for improved image quality, reproducibility and alignment.

The system, first announced at the meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging in June, reconstructs both the SPECT and CT portions of images into a much higher frame of reference than traditional systems.

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Nanomedicine / Nuclear Medicine / Oncology

Radioactive Lead Coupled to Tumor-Seeking Antibodies to Kill Cancer

by Editors on Jun 11, 2013
Radioactive Lead Coupled to Tumor-Seeking Antibodies to Kill Cancer

The business of ferrying tumor killing particles and depositing them on their targets has been a major part of nanotechnology research. Much of this work focuses on the particles themselves, exploring new ways for them to attack cancer cells, while antibodies do the work of transporting and navigating. Researchers at University of Alabama at Birmingham are investigating direct radioactive “nuking” of cells with lead-212 attached to tumor seeking antibodies.

Radioisotope lead-212 has a half-life of about eleven hours, and in the experiment it was attached to the commonly used Herceptin (trastuzumab) antibody used in cancer treatment that interferes with the HER2 receptor. HER2 is a protein often found in large quantities in breast cancers, so the system essentially delivers the already used cancer therapy along with radioactive lead to the target. The researchers are currently conducting a phase I clinical trial testing the safety of the technique. Initial results on the first three patients are being presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

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Nuclear Medicine / Orthopedic Surgery / Radiology

SPECT-CT Fusion Imaging Reveals Tiny Bone Fractures

by Editors on Feb 21, 2013
SPECT-CT Fusion Imaging Reveals Tiny Bone Fractures

Stress fractures of bones can be difficult to detect using traditional X-rays, but that doesn’t prevent them from cracking further and causing great displeasure to the patients. Early detection can lead to preventative rehab, so radiologists at the General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital in Missouri have developed a better, though more expensive, way of finding small fractures.

They combined SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography), typically used for imaging soft tissue, with low dose CT to create fusion images that reveal fractures otherwise unseen. Now U.S. Army soldiers visiting the hospital after an injury have a much higher chance of going to therapy rather than back to work with an active fracture.

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Nuclear Medicine / Surgery

Digirad ergo Nuclear Imaging System Gets Expanded FDA Clearance

by Editors on Jan 31, 2013
Digirad ergo Nuclear Imaging System Gets Expanded FDA Clearance

Digirad (Poway, CA) received clearance from the FDA for expanded indications for the company’s ergo imaging system. These include lymphatic scintigraphy and parathyroid scintigraphy, for help assessing lesions in the breast and other small parts of the body. Initial clearance by the FDA came three years ago.

The system features a 12.25 x 15.5 inch field of view, an intrinsic spatial resolution of 3.25 mm, an energy resolution of 7.9%, and 5 Mcps.

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Nuclear Medicine / Oncology / Radiation Oncology / Radiology

Lantheus Announces First Technetium-99m Isotope Generator from Low Enriched Uranium

by Editors on Jan 10, 2013
Lantheus Announces First Technetium-99m Isotope Generator from Low Enriched Uranium

Last week the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2011 (AMIPA) finally became law, and America is planning on curtailing the use and export of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for the production of medical isotopes.

Coinciding with President Obama’s signing of the act into law, Lantheus Medical Imaging, Inc. of N. Billerica, MA, is now making available its LEU TechneLite generator, the first technetium-99m (Tc-99m) generator in the US that uses molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) sourced from at least 95% low enriched uranium.

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Nuclear Medicine / Oncology / Radiology

New Technology Helps Combine Positron Emission Tomography with Magnetic Resonance Imaging

by Editors on Aug 22, 2012
New Technology Helps Combine Positron Emission Tomography with Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Combination PET/MR scanners are a hot thing in oncology these days, providing a functional view of a tumor while locating it within the body, something that normally had to be done using a PET/CT or separately first in a PET scanner and then an MRI. PET/CT exposes the patient to a large radiation dose while providing poor soft tissue imaging, and doing separate PET and MR scans requires superimposing complicated imaging studies taken at different times.

Siemens so far is the only company offering a true PET/MR clinical system that performs both scans simultaneously, while a Philips system uses two nearby scanners with a shared table that moves the patient from one imaging modality to the other.

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Informatics / Nuclear Medicine

Philips’ IntelliSpace Portal Now With Nuclear Medicine Apps

by Editors on Jun 11, 2012
Philips' IntelliSpace Portal Now With Nuclear Medicine Apps

Philips has added a bunch of nuclear medicine applications to its IntelliSpace Portal, a system that provides clinicians powerful imaging analysis and visualization tools through just about any common computing device like a PC or tablet.

The portal already supported the full suite of CT and MR related applications for review, diagnosis, and sharing of imagery.

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in the news... / Nuclear Medicine

U of Wisconsin to Build Reactorless Mo-99 Medical Isotope Generation Facility

by Editors on May 15, 2012
U of Wisconsin to Build Reactorless Mo-99 Medical Isotope Generation Facility

The radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) is a source for the commonly used radiomarker technetium-99m applicable in cancer diagnostics and life science research, but it’s in short supply and there are no American manufacturers of the material. Producing Mo-99 typically involves bombarding highly enriched uranium (U-235) with an intense beam of neutrons, which normally means you’ll need a nuclear reactor and have to answer to authorities that deter nuclear weapon proliferation to make the stuff. Last year the Canadian government gave $15 million to the Canadian Light Source, a 2.9 GeV synchrotron facility, to develop a method of using X-rays to manufacture molybdenum-99.

Following up on their own $4.6 million investment last year in NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes to do the same, America’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has partnered with the Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin to build an $85 million facility that will use an accelerator to generate Mo-99.

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