MD Anderson OncoLog, Volume 44, Number 1, January 1999 Page: 3
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... a benign biopsy is not a benign experience for the woman."
- Wai-Hoi Wong, Ph.D., Department of Nuclear Medicinedesign as "one of the breakthroughs
that is very important to PET imaging."
The second advantage of
MDACAM is its lower cost, which is
also a function of the unique detec-
tor design. "This design allows me
to keep the cost lower than commer-
cial tomographs," said Dr. Wong.
"We expect that this camera will have
a production cost of only 60% of a
regular machine."
The third advantage of the proto-
type camera is what Dr. Wong calls
its "convertible geometry." Unlike
commercially available PET cameras,
in which the patient lies on a table
that slides through a vertical open-
ing, the prototype machine can be
tilted so that the camera opening can
be set to either vertical or horizontal.
"The machine that I developed
here has a special breast mode," said
Dr. Wong. "The patient lies on top
of the camera with the breast hang-
ing down. In a regular commercial
machine, the chest is inside the
camera and the chest attenuates
the majority of the signal. By having
the breast hanging down and only
the breast in the field of view of the
camera, I can get eight times higher
detection sensitivity." The patient
opening in the camera can also be
adjusted to any diameter between32 and 55 cm. "With the small-ring
configuration," Dr. Wong said,
"the detector module is placed
very near the breast, which also
increases sensitivity."
Plans are under way to begin
testing the new camera in clinical
trials. In these trials, patients will
have scans with both Dr. Wong's
camera and a commercially available
PET camera, and the results will
be compared. The new camera
will also be used for other imaging
applications, including brain,
head and neck, and whole-body
imaging.
"All the advantages true for
the breast will be true for brain
tumors, for head and neck tumors,"
said Dr. Wong, citing the size
similarity between brain and
breast.
Use of PET remains somewhat
limited at present, in large part
because of financial considerations.
According to Dr. Nutt, the major
challenge to widespread imple-
mentation of PET is reimbursement
regulation. The Health Care Financ-
ing Administration (HCFA), which
administers the Medicare and
Medicaid programs within the U.S.
Department of Health and Human
Services, only recently approvedreimbursement for a PET applica-
tion for the first time-detection of
lung cancer-but more approvals
appear to be on the horizon.
"There's a major effort going
on in HCFA to have a broad-based
reimbursement for PET for most all
oncology indications," Dr. Nutt said.
"This is probably the most important
milestone for PET to become really
widespread." HCFA sponsored town
hall meetings in January to hear
arguments for PET oncology applica-
tion reimbursement. Other hurdles
to overcome are the limited number
of sites that produce the radio-
pharmaceuticals required for PET
and the high cost of the cameras. "I
look forward to Gary Wong's getting
his tomograph in the clinical envi-
ronment," Dr. Nutt said, "and I
would say the super-high resolution
he's got will pave the way for indus-
tries such as ours to bring forth
commercial versions that will be
very valuable in PET, especially in
things like breast cancer."
Dr. Wong is hopeful this will
occur soon. "After all," he said,
"a benign biopsy is not a benign
experience for the woman."e
FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact Dr Wong
at (713) 745-3069.
A three-dimensional
image of the same
phantom breasts
pictured on page 2
shows peaks at the
lesion sites propor-
tionate to glucose
iptake.MD Anderson OncoLog / 3
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University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. MD Anderson OncoLog, Volume 44, Number 1, January 1999, periodical, January 1999; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth902984/m1/3/: accessed July 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.