The Nuclear Medicine-PET Service is reinforced with a digital SPECT-CT gamma camera with twelve digital CZT detectors, the first of its kind in Spain
It will be part of the High Precision Diagnostics Centre together with the first PET/MRI in the Catalan public health system
It will allow a more accurate diagnosis thanks to an excellent improvement in image quality, due to the increase in resolution and sensitivity, as well as the capture of 3D images
The Nuclear Medicine-PET Service at Bellvitge University Hospital (HUB) has incorporated a gamma camera, the only one of its kind in Spain, to its diagnosis-imaging arsenal. This new device will allow progresses in care and research in the field of oncology, especially in theragnosis, but also in non-oncological pathology such as brain studies of movement disorders and infectious pathology. Theragnosis addresses image-guided treatment, a field that has opened up new hopes in oncology, with promising results in neuroendocrine or metastatic prostate cancers.
The technological equipment in question, purchased with Next Generation funding (investment C18.I1) from the European Union, is a SPECT/CT (Veriton-CT) gamma camera with twelve digital CZT detectors. These sensors, with the most advanced technology currently available, allow to surround the patient's body by adjusting them to an optimal position with millimetre precision. In addition, it has a hybrid 3D digital scanner.
"The improvement in image resolution as well as being able to work with 3D images will allow us to be more precise in diagnosis," according to Dr Montse Cortés, coordinator of Nuclear Medicine-PET (IDI) at the HUB. "We will also be able to design personalised treatments with molecular radiotherapy," she adds.
In addition to the diagnosis impact, this pioneering equipment’s improved image quality will reduce study acquisition time and radiopharmaceutical dose. Both are major improvements for the patient, entailing less waiting time and less radiation.
The device will be operating at full capacity with a care load of more than 3,500 studies per year. This hybrid nuclear medicine equipment is the first of its kind to be installed in Spain.
Bellvitge, a European benchmark in theragnosis and dosimetry
Theragnosis is a treatment strategy that combines therapy with diagnosis. It is considered the present and future of Nuclear Medicine. Based on the molecular images obtained from scintigraphy, it will enable treatments with direct targeting of tumour cells, while respecting healthy tissue.
The basis for theragnosis lies in the availability of images that allow the treatment to be clearly defined while those same images can be used for diagnosis. With these images and genetic information, it will be possible to develop trials and new targeted therapies with an appropriate risk-benefit ratio for patients. In fact, it is a step towards personalised and precision medicine.
The new gamma camera at the HUB give us images offering quantitative parameters. "We can correlate the uptake of lesions with the prognostic value and final outcome," explained Gabriel Reynés, a radiophysicist at ICO who collaborates with the Nuclear Medicine Service of the HUB. "It will be a very important basis for carrying out research at the Bellvitge Campus and further refine the response to treatment of patients undergoing cancer treatment in the future," added the specialist.
Recently, the Nuclear Medicine team at the Bellvitge University Hospital received a grant from the Spanish Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SEMNIM) to carry out dosimetry studies, a discipline that measures the amount of radiopharmaceutical deposited in the tumour lesions of cancer patients.
"The new gamma camera will allow us to personalise therapies even more: in addition to knowing precisely the dose that reaches tumour lesions, in the future we will be able to calculate the amount of radiopharmaceutical that healthy tissues receive and modulate the treatment," he said.
In fact, the HUB is a reference centre for patient recruitment and trials in Europe and Spain for Lutetium-PSMA, a radiopharmaceutical that could improve survival in people with advanced prostate cancer.
A paradigm shift in image diagnosis
Bellvitge will have a High Precision Diagnostics Centre with the installation of the first PET/MRI healthcare equipment in Spain. This equipment brings together the two most powerful diagnostic imaging tools currently available: positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. It will serve the entire Catalan public system, generating a single portfolio. The centre will be inaugurated in the third quarter of 2022.
The new gamma camera complements the High Precision Diagnostics Centre, which aims to generate a new paradigm in diagnostic imaging and nuclear medicine, taking the patient experience as the backbone. The implementation of the PET/MRI will be possible thanks to the philanthropic collaboration of the Daniel Bravo Andreu Private Foundation and will make Bellvitge Hospital a reference centre for southern Europe in the use of PET/MRI equipment.
The HUB has accumulated significant experience in the field of diagnostic imaging. It was the first public centre to have a PET/CT equipment and it is the hospital performing the most PET/CT diagnostic tests in Spain.