A new hospital/industry study reports of promise in blending PET and MRI imaging technologies to help diagnose and stage cancer treatments.
Philips Healthcare ($PHG) teamed with scientists from the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Ohio for the project, which of course relied on Philips technology (the company's Ingenuity TF PET/MRI system). But despite the specific industry stake in this study, hybrid PET/MRI machines are an element of healthcare likely to be used increasingly over time, in the wake of their emergence in the U.S. market and elsewhere a few years ago. Philips isn't the only manufacturer--Siemens ($SI) is in the game, too, among others.
What's the benefit of combining both? As the Philips/University Hospitals team explains, MRI technology provides high detail of anatomy, plus biochemical and functional information. PET scans focus more on metabolic, molecular and physiologic information. The idea is that the combined capability offers added diagnostics data when dealing with cancer, which the researchers said they found to be the case. Details are published in the journal Current Radiology Reports.
For the study, the research team scanned 145 cancer patients using PET/CT and then PET/MRI. What they found: PET/MRI worked well in flagging areas of malignancies and helped diagnose several different kinds of cancers. What's more, they noted that the PET/MRI option exposed patients to less imaging radiation versus PET/CT. Considering that both combined options offer a similar diagnostic outcome for some cancers, the option that generates less radiation is worth noting. That's ideal in particular, the researchers note, when treating children or young adult patients who need imaging follow-ups.
"We are very excited to be among the first to be able to help establish guidelines of how best to use this technology to guide physicians on the value of the PET/MRI in diagnosing and staging various forms of cancer," study author Dr. Norbert Avril, a nuclear radiologist at UH Case Medical Center and professor, said in a statement. "Our initial experience has shown that it may be a very important cancer-fighting tool."
In 2009, Philips launched an imaging innovation center at UH Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve with a goal of developing, validating and releasing the latest imaging updates in Cleveland and beyond. Whatever you think about industry/academic partnerships, this study shows how an alliance between both sides can propel product development and launching in new ways.
- read the release
- here's the journal abstract