In March of 2005, the Methodist Medical Center in Peoria Illinois installed a new Philips GEMINI GXL PET/CT system.
“I’m a very experienced PET reader,” says Dr. Carter Young, Chairman and Director of the Department of Medical Imaging. “I’m use to looking at CT scans and PET scans side-by-side and integrating them in my mind. So I questioned the value of a combined scanner. I was wrong. There’s no doubt the GEMINI GXL brings value to my clinicians and my patients and makes me better at what I do – finding disease.”
Location, location, location
The ability of the GXL to marry high-quality functional and anatomical images allows Dr. Young to be extraordinarily precise with localization of cancerous lesions. “We had a patient present with presumed recurrent cancer. Although he’d had a sarcoma in his leg that had been resected, he was in uncontrollable pain.”
The attending oncologist wanted absolute confirmation of recurrent cancer before subjecting the patient to significant therapy. However, an initial biopsy proved confusing because it came back negative.
“I looked at the PET/CT data and at where the interventional radiologist had placed the needle,” remembers Dr. Young. “I decided she had been off by just 3 millimeters. Now that’s a very very small distance. We repeated the biopsy, moved the needle 3 millimeters medially – and found a recurrent tumor. Without PET/CT it would have been impossible to make that type of judgment call.”
Affecting patient treatment
In another instance, a patient’s chest CT described the presence of lung cancer. So a chest wall resection was discussed. Dr. Young knew a PET/CT exam would help clinicians make the proper decision. “Our goal is always to avoid inappropriate interventions. We want to operate only when we need to operate.”
The addition of PET to the diagnostic equation added the biological indication of a spreading tumor. The results were remarkable. “The CT alone did not describe the fact that the tumor was growing out between the ribs and had gone from a T2 lesion to a T3 lesion. That finding changed the patient status from resectable to unresectable and saved him from a difficult procedure.”
The need for quality and speed
Exclusive Philips technology makes the GEMINI GXL one of the fastest hybrid scanners on the market.
Dr. Young acknowledges the importance of fast exams for optimal image quality. “The longer a patient is on the table, the more likely they are to shift or move, which then causes mis-registration between the CT and PET datasets. So the faster you can scan the less likely you are to have movement. With the GXL we’ve gone from scans of 45 minutes to scans of 15 minutes. And the resulting images are exceptional.”
GEMINI GXL PET/CT scan
Proving it’s worth
The GEMINI GXL has assisted Dr. Young and his team at Methodist Medical Center with over 900 studies to date - optimizing the exam experience in terms of:
Delivering a low radiation dose
Producing high quality images
Scanning in a short period of time and ...
Providing diagnostic insight unavailable in mutually exclusive (PET and CT) modalities
“Now I know exactly where the disease is,” concludes Dr. Young. “And I can provide a more confident report to my referring physicians, positively impacting patient outcome.”
[Published: 2006-02-28]