Royal Philips Electronics announced CE marking for the industry’s first commercially available whole body PET/MR imaging system, the Ingenuity TF PET/MR. This new system integrates the molecular imaging capabilities of PET (positron emission tomography) with the superior soft tissue contrast of MR (magnetic resonance) to image disease cells as they proliferate in soft tissue.
Since the Ingenuity TF PET and MR scanners are placed only three meters apart and the patient table rotates to allow the patient to be scanned by each modality, the system can also acquire separate PET and MR images.
The Ingenuity TF PET/MR is used to screen patients at high-risk for heart disease to ultimately treat diseased cells prior to the formation of dangerous coronary plaques. The system may also be used to scan patients to detect tumor formation/recurrence. Since the Ingenuity TF PET/MR provides the best of Astonish TF PET and 3T MR, it is also possible to track whether a drug is reaching a tumor or plaque and monitor efficacy on a potential cellular level. In addition to greater visualisation of disease process, the system can also produce up to 70% less ionising radiation than PET/CT .[i] <#_edn1> , [ii] <#_edn2>
The future of personalised medicine
The combination of advances in high resolution MR and the ability to combine MR and PET into one whole body system has lead healthcare professionals to believe that the Ingenuity TF PET/MR will help identify disease sooner and make personalised medicine a reality.
“It’s rare to develop a modality that completely revolutionises imaging; usually, companies can only strive for clearer images at a lower dose. With the Ingenuity TF PET/MR, researchers are experiencing breakthroughs on multiple fronts. They are able to effectively image the prostate for the first time and detect deadly cancers in organs such as the pancreas at a significantly earlier stage,” said Dominic Smith, vice president of marketing, Computed Tomography and Nuclear Medicine for Philips Healthcare. “The Ingenuity TF PET/MR provides researchers and clinicians an unprecedented opportunity to make earlier diagnoses and personalise treatments for oncology and cardiology.”
University of Geneva
The University Hospital of Geneva houses Europe’s first combined whole body PET/MR system. Osman Ratib , chief of Nuclear Medicine, University of Geneva, commented, “Our validation tests show that bringing the two modalities together improves the quality and accuracy of diagnoses. The molecular imaging provided by PET in conjunction with the anatomy and tissue characterisation of MR has enabled us to see the function and metabolism of tissue more precisely than ever before. The clinical cases have already shown the advantages of being able to perfectly superimpose PET over MR images to detect lesions in various organs. Previously, this was not possible because the two studies took place at different times, with different conditions and with different patient positions.”
Zahi Fayad, professor of Radiology and Medicine (Cardiology), and director, Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute , Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, New York and Joerg Steinbach, director, Institute of Radiopharmacy, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Dresden, Germany also installed the Ingenuity TF PET/MR. In 2011, additional installations are expected worldwide.
The Ingenuity TF PET/MR is not yet available for sale in the USA.
