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The Story of PET
It's been called "medicine's new vision." It's been applauded
on the pages of newspapers, graced the covers of magazines, and had its
exploits detailed in "The New England Journal of Medicine." It
is perhaps the most exquisitely precise and remarkably accurate diagnostic
tool ever developed.
It was conceived 16 years ago.
Yet even as researchers at universities in Europe, Asia and the United
States took advantage of its uncanny abilities to explore the chemistry
of the human body, the door remained closed to hospitals. And the life-saving
diagnostic power of PET imaging remained unavailable to those who needed
it most.
It was not just the prodigious expense and ponderous size of the
cyclotron - housed in its own building and managed via a network of intricate
controls - but the cumbersome requirements of staff and complicated corollary
equipment needed to run and administer the researchers' PET system, which
prohibited its clinical use.
Hospitals needed a system that could be run by one technician. A
system that would prepare the final isotopic product in a state suitable
for a physician to administer to the patient. A system free of the need
for a stand-alone building.
PET was impractical.
Over the years, refinements made it more practical, more manageable,
less complicated. The cyclotron was downsized. Dynamic technological advances
made it possible to run the system via a personal computer. A small repertoire
of isotopic products was developed for the newly trim system.
Still hospitals were reluctant. Millions for a machine that didn't
have the support and resources of a large company behind it was foolhardy.
The door was still closed.
Then, in November, 1987, Siemens entered the picture, buying 50 percent
of a company that had succeeded in building a smaller, less complicated
cyclotron. And the picture changed.
Now a major imaging company was involved. Now the world's largest
supplier of medical electronics had stepped forward - a company with the
experience necessary to build a PET system and the resources to back it.
Today a PET scan is a push-button procedure, as effortless as an
X-ray for patient and technician. After 16 years of being considered beyond
the pale of practicality, this sophisticated imaging technique has moved
into the present. PET is accessible, practical, available.
The door stands open.
While PET Technology has dramatically improved to make PET accessible,
practical and available, only TRI-X PET© makes it routine and affordable.
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