Improved diagnostic accuracy – with Molecular Imaging

Particularly in dense breast tissue or implants, it is difficult to reliably stage primary tumors and differentiate benign from malignant breast lesions. Here, metabolic imaging with PET•CT is useful to characterize a breast mass. Our comprehensive suite of equipment for molecular imaging offers sophisticated clinical imaging as well as preclinical and biomarker solutions. Where other clinical procedures may have proven inconclusive, PET has been proven to be very useful in depicting metastases.

Data courtesy of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA

Hybrid systems such as our Biograph™ for PET•CT combine the anatomical information provided by CT with the functional information and tumor metabolism obtained with PET, leading to an improvement in diagnostic confidence as well as therapeutic decision-making. Using the tracer 18F-FDG, PET•CT enables accurate staging of breast carcinoma by localizing axillary lymph node and distant metastases.

Technological advancements such as HD•PET and ultraHD•PET provide high resolution across the entire field of view and high lesion contrast for enhanced delineation of small lymph nodal and distant metastases – for diagnostic confidence and staging accuracy.

Courtesy of the Beijing Hospital, Beijing, China

Our Symbia® S and Symbia E for SPECT, and the hybrid Symbia TruePoint™ SPECT•CT systems can improve the diagnosis and localization of skeletal metastases. Hybrid devices such as SPECT•CT and PET•CT can improve diagnostic accuracy and eliminate additional investigations, thereby substantially reducing the time needed for diagnoses, which may lead to cost savings and speed up appropriate therapy.

“What’s novel about Symbia TruePoint SPECT•CT is that you perform two exams in the same sitting – we can acquire the CT scan right after the SPECT and fuse the image. The result is more precise localization of the node. Here, we call it ‘SPECT-ACULAR-CT.’”

Homer Macapinlac, MD, Professor and Chairman of Nuclear Imaging, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA