BOLOGNA (ITALPRESS) – “We find ourselves able to use a total body PET/CT which, compared to conventional machines, drastically reduces the duration of the exam, going from 12 minutes to less than two minutes, an advantage that is particularly useful especially for severely ill patients. painful, for children and for those who have limited ability to collaborate. This equipment is extremely sensitive: a characteristic that allows us not only to identify even the smallest pathological lesions, but which also allows us to limit up to 80%. the dose of radiopharmaceutical administered”. These are the words with which Stefano Fanti, director of the Nuclear Medicine Center of the IRCCS University Hospital of Bologna, commented on the start of the activities of the uExplorer system, an innovative piece of equipment (less than ten installations are operational worldwide) which confirms the excellent positioning of the Bologna center in the international field of diagnostic imaging. The uExplorer offers clinicians and patients an excellent approach both in the oncology field and in other sectors. The contribution offered by uExplorer in the field of research is enormous, because – underlines Fanti – “by allowing the pharmacokinetics and biodistribution of tracers to be studied in the whole body, the new PET/CT Total-Body opens up important prospects for the development of new radiopharmaceuticals both with diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. The study activity will mainly concern the oncology field, but also inflammatory processes and autoimmune diseases”.
The installation of uExplorer, equipment developed at the University of California-Davis and produced by the multinational United Imaging Healthcare, was made possible by the collaboration between the Emilia-Romagna Region and the University Hospital of Bologna (and the activation ceremony was attended by General Manager Chiara Gibertoni), and by the exclusive distributor FORA, a company based in Parma, Italian leader in the diagnostics sector. Carlo Q. Degano, president of FORA, states: “Today in Bologna we find ourselves faced with a very advanced Molecular Imaging instrument and one of the few in the world, many times more sensitive than the best product on the market at the moment, capable of creating a dynamic study of the whole body. uExplorer also has unique characteristics in terms of system sustainability, because by using one sixth of the radiopharmaceutical it proves capable of much higher productivity than traditional models”. “It is an activation that makes us all proud of the ability of the national health system to make the most advanced technological innovation available for the benefit of patients – specifies the president of Fora -. As a company I must underline that in Bologna we had the opportunity to experiment with the best possible integration and collaboration, that is, the opportunity to meet an enlightened user center, administration and region that believed, or rather pushed to have the lead in this diagnostic revolution”. At the IRCCS S. Orsola, an example of effective collaboration between public and private has been created, of a real connection between the need for care and the contribution of technological innovation. Degano continues: “The way and tone with which we all worked to make this dream reality was respectful of each other’s roles and was always supported by a single “mantra”: giving patients the best there was in the world and actively supporting research. For us, being part of this page of history, first in Europe and first in Italy, is a reward that crowns our resourcefulness and makes us responsible for having an increasingly epochal role, but at the same time will require ever greater skills, attention and humility. and common sense, which will be the slogans that will distinguish us as a company in the future too.” Also present in Bologna was the president and CEO of the International Division of United Imaging, Jusong Xia, who brought the experience of developing the diagnostic system achieved over years of research to which different study centers around the world contributed. “The creation of uExplorer is a success story of international collaboration – said Jusong Xia –. After years of research and development together with UC Davis and Yale University, we have developed and delivered an ultra-high resolution with an axial PET field of view (FOV) of 194 cm which allows the entire body to be scanned with a single patient positioning of radiopharmaceutical to the patient extremely low and produces extremely high image resolution, changing the way whole-body PET/CT imaging has traditionally been performed”. – Photo FORA press office -(ITALPRESS). sat/com 24-Jun-24 13:34 .
