Advanced medical imaging system now in RP

The Philippines joins the elite shortlist of countries with far-advanced medical imaging, with the installation of the first Position Emission Tomography (PET) scanning system in Southeast Asia as well as the first medical Cyclotron at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City.

PET is the most advanced medical imaging system in the world. It is a non-invasive imaging technique that shows the functions of the different diseased organs and tissues of the body.

It provides fundamental advantages over conventional scans like the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT) and Gamma Camera/SPECT.

With a wide range of diagnostic capabilities in cancer, cardiology and neurology, PET helps the physician make an early diagnosis and guides him in planning the most beneficial medical management for his patients, in many cases resulting in improved clinical outcomes.

Of the over 6,000 hospitals in the United States, only about 200 are equipped with a PET scanner and even much fewer with a Cyclotron.

The St. Luke’s PET Center houses the only medical Cyclotron in the country and this facility is entrusted to PET physicist Nathaniel de Vera.

The Cyclotron produces the radioisotope, which is used to synthesize a high-purity radiopharmaceutical by PET radiochemist Katheryn Mandap. Both De Vera and Mandap trained at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center under world-renowned radiochemist Dr. Ronald Finn. The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York is acknowledged in the medical community as the best cancer center in the world.

Dr. Jonas Santiago, an American Board of Nuclear Medicine certified specialist who also trained at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, heads the St. Luke’s PET Center. His intensive training, experience and qualifications, combined with those of De Vera and Mandap, along with the state-of-the-art PET scanner, Cyclotron and the radiochemistry laboratory, truly make the facility at par with, if not better than other PET centers in the world.

According to Santiago, PET, in the majority of cases, will enable the doctor to see cancerous lesions, which cannot be seen by MRI or CT scans. It will also determine whether the cancer has spread, and the extent of the metastasis. PET will also help the oncologist determine and track the course of treatment, and check whether the treatment is working or not.

PET imaging of the brain is helpful in the diagnosis of Alzheimer‘s disease, in the localization of epileptic foci, and in the evaluation of brain masses. Cardiac PET imaging can help cardiologists decide whether a patient needs a coronary bypass, an angioplasty or a heart transplant. PET will also be used extensively for research in cancer, neurology and cardiology.

Operating a PET facility does not come easy, even for an institution like the St. Luke’s Medical Center. It is a huge investment in technology and professional expertise – in this case, an investment of about P200 million in equipment, construction and training. This is a path that St. Luke’s has consistently chosen to take because of its commitment to make available to Filipinos every technology and expertise which can be found in the best medical institutions in the world.