Jay Patel, Class of 2022
After over a decade of research, the world’s first medical imaging scanner that can capture a 3D picture of the entire human body at once has produced its first scans. A dual CT and PET scanner, the new Explorer machine combines imaging techniques in order to provide a scan of the entire human body. Prior to what was provided by Explorer, PET and CT scans were used the most. In order to understand the marvel of Explorer, PET and CT scanning needs to be understood. As defined by Mayo Clinic, a positron emission tomography (PET) scan is basically an imaging test that helps reveal how your tissues and organs are functioning. Created around the 1950s, a PET scan uses a radioactive drug to show this activity. The benefits of this scan include being able to detect disease before it shows up on other imaging tests. Invented in 1972, a computerized tomography (CT) scan combines a series of x-ray images taken from different angles around your body and uses computer processing to produce images of the bones, blood vessels, and soft tissues inside your body, all of which provide more detailed information than standard x-rays.
UC Davis scientists Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi have worked to develop Explorer for thirteen years with the hopes of enabling medical specialists to diagnose ailments and develop new drug treatments. Cherry stated that “there was a measure of ridicule, actually, about the idea of building a full body scanner, because it was considered too grandiose” (UC Davis Health). The results of the first 3D image produced by the scanner was nothing less than spectacular. As put by New Atlas, “the level of detail was astonishing, especially once we got the reconstruction method a bit more optimized,” says Ramsey Badawi, chief of Nuclear Medicine at UC Davis Health. “We could see features that you just don't see on regular PET scans. And the dynamic sequence showing the radiotracer moving around the body in three dimensions over time was, frankly, mind-blowing. There is no other device that can obtain data like this in humans, so this is truly novel” (Physics World). One of the most innovative uses of this new scanning device is its capacity to catch a whole body in single quick scans. Due to the need of filtering single bits of the body at one time, current PET frameworks are on a very basic level inefficient when compared to the abilities of Explorer. As a result of this inefficiency, a clinician's capacity to study the impacts of something moving over the whole body in real time is greatly restricted.
In addition to its range of abilities, Explorer is forty times faster on human subjects than most PET scans. A scan of the entire body can be produced in as little as twenty-five seconds with a radiation dose of forty times less than a PET scan for each scan. Explorer emits a dose of radiations that is comparable to a return flight from the west coast to London and back as explained by Badawi. This reduced dose of radiation is expected to greatly open up the application space for PET scanning. According to Cherry, this technology can have numerous applications - namely, drug therapy and improving the overall quality of disease diagnostics - all thanks to the Explorer’s ability to produce higher-quality scans than ever before. The reason for this higher quality is directly related with the length of the scan. This is because it is much easier for a patient to lie still for 30 seconds that it is for 20 minutes leading to much less blurring due to motion. In an interview with Physics World, Cherry explained that in Explorer’s scans, patients are injected with radioactive tracers, which emit positrons that annihilate upon collision with electrons in tissue. The result is the release of photon pairs, which trigger signals in external detectors – enabling medical physicists to create maps of internal biological processes. Cherry says the process is “a beautiful example of Einstein’s” mass-energy equivalence in action (UC Davis Health), before explaining how tumors can be diagnosed from their high demand for the biological tracer.
Explorer is a truly remarkable machine, and it has been predicted that it will not be long until it is all around the world. With progress being made to get the device displayed at the upcoming Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago, scientists are eager to start using Explorer to image patients. The scanner is slated to start operating in Sacramento as early as June 2019.
References
UC Davis scientists Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi have worked to develop Explorer for thirteen years with the hopes of enabling medical specialists to diagnose ailments and develop new drug treatments. Cherry stated that “there was a measure of ridicule, actually, about the idea of building a full body scanner, because it was considered too grandiose” (UC Davis Health). The results of the first 3D image produced by the scanner was nothing less than spectacular. As put by New Atlas, “the level of detail was astonishing, especially once we got the reconstruction method a bit more optimized,” says Ramsey Badawi, chief of Nuclear Medicine at UC Davis Health. “We could see features that you just don't see on regular PET scans. And the dynamic sequence showing the radiotracer moving around the body in three dimensions over time was, frankly, mind-blowing. There is no other device that can obtain data like this in humans, so this is truly novel” (Physics World). One of the most innovative uses of this new scanning device is its capacity to catch a whole body in single quick scans. Due to the need of filtering single bits of the body at one time, current PET frameworks are on a very basic level inefficient when compared to the abilities of Explorer. As a result of this inefficiency, a clinician's capacity to study the impacts of something moving over the whole body in real time is greatly restricted.
In addition to its range of abilities, Explorer is forty times faster on human subjects than most PET scans. A scan of the entire body can be produced in as little as twenty-five seconds with a radiation dose of forty times less than a PET scan for each scan. Explorer emits a dose of radiations that is comparable to a return flight from the west coast to London and back as explained by Badawi. This reduced dose of radiation is expected to greatly open up the application space for PET scanning. According to Cherry, this technology can have numerous applications - namely, drug therapy and improving the overall quality of disease diagnostics - all thanks to the Explorer’s ability to produce higher-quality scans than ever before. The reason for this higher quality is directly related with the length of the scan. This is because it is much easier for a patient to lie still for 30 seconds that it is for 20 minutes leading to much less blurring due to motion. In an interview with Physics World, Cherry explained that in Explorer’s scans, patients are injected with radioactive tracers, which emit positrons that annihilate upon collision with electrons in tissue. The result is the release of photon pairs, which trigger signals in external detectors – enabling medical physicists to create maps of internal biological processes. Cherry says the process is “a beautiful example of Einstein’s” mass-energy equivalence in action (UC Davis Health), before explaining how tumors can be diagnosed from their high demand for the biological tracer.
Explorer is a truly remarkable machine, and it has been predicted that it will not be long until it is all around the world. With progress being made to get the device displayed at the upcoming Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago, scientists are eager to start using Explorer to image patients. The scanner is slated to start operating in Sacramento as early as June 2019.
References
- Houser, K. (2018, November 21). See the 3D images produced by the first full-body medical scanner. Retrieved from https://futurism.com/the-byte/medical-scanner-explorer
- World's first total-body medical scanner produces first scans. (2018, November 22). Retrieved from https://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/worlds-first-total-body-medical-scanner-produces-first-scans
- Haridy, R. (2018, November 20). World's first full-body medical scanner generates astonishing 3D images. Retrieved from https://newatlas.com/full-body-scan-explorer-medical-imaging/57303/
- UC Davis Health, & Public Affairs and Marketing. (n.d.). Human images from the world's first total-body medical scanner unveiled. Retrieved from https://health.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/13358
- (2018, March 14). Retrieved from https://physicsworld.com/a/developing-the-worlds-first-full-body-pet-scanner/
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