Bellvitge University Hospital has launched a pioneering device in Spain that will serve to improve diagnostic imaging for oncology patients, as well as open new options for the treatment of this disease through theragnosis, a strategy considered the future of nuclear medicine. The equipment will also serve other types of patients, such as those affected by movement disorders like Parkinson's. Recently, Vall d'Hebron Hospital acquired similar equipment.
The new device available in Bellvitge is a gamma camera, basic equipment for nuclear medicine, a specialty that uses radioactive substances to obtain an image of the body and apply an appropriate and focused treatment. Gamma cameras go beyond CT scans and MRIs, offering functional information about the organ or tissue studied, which allows checking if it is functioning well or if there is any lesion. To obtain all this data, patients are administered a radiopharmaceutical, usually intravenously, which emits radiation. This radiation is detected by the gamma camera, which translates it into a precise image, increasing the chances of success in diagnosis, as well as in therapies.
In this regard, the device incorporated in the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat center is equipped with the latest technologies, which allows, for example, to completely surround the patient's body with sensors and obtain a more complete and detailed image to the millimeter. "The improvement in image resolution and the ability to work with three-dimensional images will allow us to be more precise in diagnosis," says Dr. Montse Cortés, coordinator of Nuclear Medicine in Bellvitge. In addition, the doctor points out, with 3D images, smaller lesions can be detected and none can escape diagnosis.
Likewise, acquiring advanced equipment like this allows for improved and more personalized treatments, and further development of theragnosis, a strategy that combines therapy with diagnosis. In oncology patients, it is used when initial treatments have failed and is yielding good results in neuroendocrine and prostate cancers with metastases.
The functioning of theragnosis is based on the fact that, if the radiopharmaceutical used in the gamma camera to obtain the image is fixed in the affected area, the medicine used to cure the disease can also do so. This type of treatment has been done for some time, but it is growing exponentially thanks to the discovery of new molecules that can be used as drugs, as well as the possibility of applying it to different tumors.
The main advantage of this strategy is that it allows selective radiation. Thus, the drugs are directed directly to the tumor cells, respecting healthy tissue, unlike chemotherapy, which affects the entire body. In addition, the development of new gamma cameras and their higher resolution, Cortés emphasizes, allows increasingly lower doses of radiation to be administered.
Synergies with the future High Precision Diagnostic Center
The Bellvitge gamma camera was acquired thanks to Next Generation funds, with a total cost of 1.53 million euros. Already in operation, it is expected to serve about 3,000 patients annually. The new technological equipment will complement the hospital's future High Precision Diagnostic Center, which is expected to open in the third quarter of 2022. In it, there will be the first public healthcare equipment in Spain that brings together the two most powerful imaging diagnostic tools currently available: positron emission tomography (PET) ---the use of a radioactive substance to detect a pathology in the body--- with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This will mean an improvement in the diagnosis of tumors such as brain and gynecological tumors, and prostate cancer. It will also reduce the number of tests that need to be done to address these pathologies, taking into account that they now require an MRI and a CT scan.
The High Precision Diagnostic Center will serve the entire Catalan public system and is expected to make Bellvitge a reference center for southern Europe in the use of these new technologies. The L'Hospitalet center has extensive accumulated experience in the field of imaging diagnostics, being the first public hospital to have equipment that combined positron emission tomography with CT scans. Currently, it is the hospital that performs the most diagnostic tests of this type in Spain.