The radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) is a source for the commonly used radiomarker technetium-99m applicable in cancer diagnostics and life science research, but it’s in short supply and there are no American manufacturers of the material. Producing Mo-99 typically involves bombarding highly enriched uranium (U-235) with an intense beam of neutrons, which normally means you’ll need a nuclear reactor and have to answer to authorities that deter nuclear weapon proliferation to make the stuff. Last year the Canadian government gave $15 million to the Canadian Light Source, a 2.9 GeV synchrotron facility, to develop a method of using X-rays to manufacture molybdenum-99.

Following up on their own $4.6 million investment last year in NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes to do the same, America’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has partnered with the Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin to build an $85 million facility that will use an accelerator to generate Mo-99.

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GE Healthcare received FDA clearance for its Q.Freeze motion correction technology that combines multiple PET/CT images from different points in the patient’s respiratory cycle to create a composite high resolution image.

This is accomplished thanks to a camera that tracks the movement of a block resting on the patient’s chest, which provides movement correction data to the algorithm that’s aggregating the images together.

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It is estimated that Alzheimer’s disease will affect 100 million people by 2050, but currently doctors rely on family history and intellectual tests to diagnose patients. Using these current methods, about 20% of patients diagnosed with AD are false positives, and the only definitive way to identify AD is post-mortem analysis of beta-amyloid in the patient’s brain tissue.

Now, Siemens Healthcare has announced an imaging solution which can detect beta-amyloid plaques in the brains of living patients. The new technology utilizes Amyvid, Eli Lilly’s recently FDA approved radioactive agent, to make the plaques visible in PET scanning. Images are captured using Siemens’ Biograph mCT PET-CT, and the company’s 510(k)-pending syngo.PET Amyloid Plaque quantification software can help doctors determine actual amyloid levels. Siemens plans to begin providing Amyvid to imaging centers this June.

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Siemens‘ Biograph mCT, a positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) scanner which was introduced at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago a few months ago, has now received FDA 510k clearance.

The Biograph mCT enables the quantification of molecular processes in the body. Current applications include cancer imaging, quantification of absolute myocardial blood flow and quantification of amyloid deposits in the brain in patients with dementia.

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Digirad received the European CE Mark of approval for its Cardius X-ACT solid state SPECT imager. It features low dose volume CT attenuation correction, 3D-OSEM reconstruction and upright imaging capability.

The company already has approval from the FDA to market the Cardius X-ACT in the U.S.

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GE Healthcare received FDA clearance for the Brivo NM615 nuclear medicine scanner with SPECT capability.  This is a budget-oriented single head system that approaches the performance of a dual head and allows for lower doses of injected radioisotopes compared to similar systems.

The device already has the European CE Mark of approval.

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Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a way to coat an iron-based contrast agent so it interacts preferentially with acidic environments in the body such as areas of tumor formation or inflammation.  The technology may lead to a potentially cheaper, safer, and more effective method of tumor detection than current less specific contrast agents.

The research was conducted by Professor Andrew Tsourkas and graduate student Samuel H. Crayton from the bioengineering department at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and published in the journal ACS Nano.  To improve the differentiation between tissues in the body, physicians use contrast agents to achieve better visualization of tissues when imaging.

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Philips has received FDA clearance for its whole body positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) imaging system, the Ingenuity TF PET/MR. The system is able to perform both standalone MR and hybrid PET/MR studies. The scanner gantries are in line with each other, and during hybrid exams, the patient table rotates between each modality to scan a patient.

The combination of PET and MRI helps to closely correlate detailed anatomical images with functional metabolic images acquired at about the same point in time and in the same position. The PET system features Philips’ Astonish TF time-of-flight technology that enhances image quality by reducing noise and providing increased sensitivity. The MR magnet has a field strength of three Tesla.

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NeuroLogica received the European CE Mark for the inSPira HD SPECT system. The battery powered system received U.S. FDA approval two years ago. It can be moved between different hospital units as needed and provides a look at cerebral blood flow distribution in patients with Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, post-stroke and other conditions.NeuroLogica claims that proprietary technology within its SPECT camera provides a considerably higher spatial resolution than any other SPECT on the market.

More from the announcement:

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Swiss companies CSEM and Swisstrace have unveiled a new nuclear medicine blood sampler for monitoring the time-course of radioactivity in whole blood.

The firms claim that the Twilite device is smaller than any other similar component and supposedly is the only sampler designed for use in combination PET/NMR devices.

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