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Health center in Canada to acquire a StarGuide SPECT/CT scanner by GE HealthCare
Press releases may be edited for formatting or style | June 04, 2024
Molecular Imaging
The QEII Foundation is working with the community to raise funds to support the $3-million fundraising goal for two StarGuide systems at the QEII. This $3-million project is part of the QEII Foundation’s $100-million We Are campaign to transform health care through the QEII Health Sciences Centre.
The $6 million project is equally funded by QEII Foundation donors and Nova Scotia Health, with government funding operational costs.
Nuclear medicine is a unique, specialized field within diagnostic imaging. Nuclear medicine scanners use radioactive tracers to light up, locate and diagnose certain diseases in the body. Image quality is critical in nuclear medicine; the more precise the image, the better physicians can assess and diagnose diseases.
Approximately 4,000 patients undergo nuclear medicine scans at the QEII annually.
The two most common nuclear medicine scans at the QEII are bone scans to detect and assess cancer and myocardial perfusion scans to assess heart disease. Bone scans currently take 45 minutes and myocardial scans take 15-20 minutes. With the StarGuide system, scan times can be shortened, enabling a better patient experience.[i]
StarGuide can help to improve the QEII’s ability to perform myocardial perfusion scans – critical tests that show how well blood flows to the muscle of the heart. These scans are the most accurate and non-invasive way to diagnose coronary artery disease.
The SPECT/CT can also help empower cancer care teams with the images and information needed to spot smaller traces of cancer at earlier stages. This can significantly impact a cancer patient’s treatment journey and overall outcome.
Better image quality and resolution can help to capture additional information that health care teams need in one scan. This can help reduce the need for patients to return to the hospital multiple times over days or weeks for more scans or tests.
The two new scanners will replace outdated technology at the QEII. The new technology can help enhance efficiency, which has the potential to enable more patients to be scanned each year – all with the aim of helping address wait lists and wait times for patients who require these types of scans.
The first of the two StarGuide scanners arrived at the QEII’s Halifax Infirmary in late May. The second scanner will arrive in 2025 and will be installed at the QEII’s Victoria General site.
Quotes:
“We are thrilled to be working with the QEII Foundation to bring this world-leading technology to the patients of Nova Scotia. This investment will revitalize our Nuclear Medicine program and allow us to provide cutting edge diagnostics in many fields, including cardiac and cancer imaging, impacting approximately 4,000 patients annually.”
