Team

PET-CT Discovery IQ

Clinica Abreu CDD's new early detection and follow-up service for cancer is equipped with the most recent Discovery IQ PET-CT equipment from General Electric's Healthcare division. The first of its kind to be installed in the Caribbean, this equipment has two LightBurst detection rings that increase the sharpness of the image, being able to more clearly identify the smallest tumor lesions, using a lower dose of radiation and high speed. of body scanning, thus achieving unprecedented efficiency in the Dominican Republic and in the region in PET-CT positron emission tomography studies

Studies

The PET-CT study is a nuclear medicine imaging tool, used in 90% of cases for early detection, diagnosis and follow-up of cancer by creating a three-dimensional image of the metabolic functioning of cells, fused with a tomography computerized axial after injecting the patient with a small dose of a radioactive, positron-emitting tracer.

Radioactive tracers or radiopharmaceuticals are the product of a particle accelerator known under the name of cyclotron. There are several types of radiopharmaceuticals whose molecular composition characteristics increase uptake sensitivity depending on the type of pathology to be studied.

The images generated by this study will allow specialists to accurately identify the existence and exact location of abnormal cellular activity in the patient's body, see the aggressiveness, trend and behavior of a particular tumor process, and capture cancer cells that other diagnostic methods cannot detect.

There is ample evidence (more than 15,000 peer-reviewed publications) in relation to the clinical benefits of the use of positron emission tomography, whose impact has been of such magnitude that various authors and clinical scientists have considered PETCT as the most important development of techniques used to capture medical images in the last twenty years.

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE PETCT STUDY

The PETCT study has relevant applications in the oncology, cardiology and neurology areas, however 90% of its current use is dedicated to the clinical management of cancer patients for: Diagnosis, differentiation between benign and malignant lesions (in solitary nodules, versus discrepancies between clinical and indeterminate complementary tests, although the recommended method is biopsy). Search for unknown primary tumors, in the case of para-neoplastic syndromes and metastasis. Staging of known oncological processes. Monitoring of response during oncological therapy. Differentiation between recurrence tumor and changes after treatment, before indeterminate complementary explorations. Determine tumor recurrence before elevation of tumor markers. Selection of the location of the tumor region to perform a biopsy. Guide to plan radiotherapy treatments.

Available radiopharmaceuticals

FLUORODEOXY-GLUCOSE (FDG)

Fluorodeoxyglucose is an analog of glucose, its full name is 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose, but its abbreviated form is often used: FDG.

FDG is transported into cells by the same mechanism as unlabeled glucose, by passive diffusion facilitated by carrier proteins, and is then phosphorylated to 18FDG-6-phosphate by the enzymes hexokinase and glucokinase. This is trapped in the cells because it cannot continue the glucose metabolic pathway.

The use of FDG in the evaluation of cancer patients is based on the increased concentration of this tracer inside tumor cells for several reasons:

Preferentially anaerobic metabolism that increases the action of glucose transport molecules (GLUT1 to GLUT9). Increase in the number of these molecules. Increase in the activity of hexokinase isoenzymes. Decrease in the activity of glucose-6-phosphatase .

On the other hand, FDG also allows us to explore other pathological processes belonging to tissues that preferentially use glucose as an energy source. Such is the case of the myocardium and the brain, which has allowed the clinical use of the technique in the evaluation of patients with different diseases of the central nervous system and with ischemic heart disease.

SODIUM FLUORIDE (NAF)

It is an important tool for the detection and evaluation of metastatic bone conditions.

PSMA (F18-PSMA-1007)

The radiopharmaceutical F18-PSMA, which uses the protein PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) as a tracer to capture cells with abnormal metabolic activity related to prostate cancer, which bloodstream binds to the cells that are causing the elevation of PSA to be later captured by the PETCT equipment, generating an image that allows us to see both its location and its metabolic activity.

This radiopharmaceutical solves the great challenge for urologists of determining where the cells scattered outside the prostate gland were located, who, using different traditional study protocols, only achieved partial or incomplete indicators.

Requirements to take into account ARS Affiliates

Team

Gammacámara INFINIA II



The service is equipped with an INFINIA II gamma camera from General Electric's Healthcare division, this equipment offers the productivity of a double head design with fully digital Elite detector technology, this equipment is consolidated in the sector after having proven its ability to guarantee a Optimum image and high performance in the capture of gamma rays.

The INFINIA II gamma camera provides multiple scanning positions for patients and ensures fast, automated, one-touch exams.

Studies

The scintigraphy is a diagnostic study of Nuclear Medicine through which images are obtained of different organs captured by a gamma camera that provides information on some diseases and functional and/or metabolic alterations, after having been supplied to the patient from a known gamma ray emitting source. as a radiopharmaceutical.

The most used emitting source for the study of scintigraphy is technetium 99m, this can adhere to several specific molecules, allowing the diagnosis of many diseases. The radiopharmaceutical has no side effects and the radiation it emits is very small, so it is considered a relatively simple and safe study.

Specialists use this tool to study, evaluate and monitor multiple conditions such as thyroid function, brain disorders (inflammation, infections, tumor lesions, dementia...); cardiological alterations (percussion deficit, myocardial ischemia…); tumor and/or metastatic lesions, among others.

The most common studies performed in a gamma camera are:

Bone scans Thyroid scan

Requirements to take into account ARS Affiliates