Media Release
Udupi, Aug 22: Manipal HealthMap Diagnostics Pvt Ltd on Saturday August 22 introduced the state-of-the-art positron emission tomography at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal here.
PET-CT is a nuclear medicine imaging modality that combines a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and a computed tomography (CT) scanner, to acquire and create a single fused PET/CT image.
Positron emission tomography and computerised tomography (PET-CT) was inaugurated by Dr Ranjan R Pai, chairman, Manipal Education and Medical Group. Dr H S Ballal, pro-chancellor of MAHE, Manipal presided over the programme and Lt General Dr M D Venkatesh, vice-chancellor of MAHE, Manipal was the guest of honour of the programme. Dr Narayan Sabhahit, Registrar of MAHE, Dr Sharath K Rao, Dean KMC, C G Muthana, chief operating officer, Dr Avinash Shetty, medical superintendent of Kasturba Hospital Manipal and Dr Sandeep Ballal, regional head of HealthMapp Diagnostics Pvt Ltd were present.
On the occasion, Dr M D Venkatesh said, "Nuclear Medicine is a specialized branch of medical field which uses radionuclides for diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from various diseases. A disease-specific ligand is attached to a radionuclide, which when injected into a patient, traces and binds to a specific receptor expressed on the pathological cell/organ. SPECT/CT and PET/CT are the two advanced imaging types of equipment in nuclear medicine used for diagnostic purposes. With this new machine in place, Kasturba Hospital Manipal, now, has both states of the art SPECT-CT and PET-CT which are very important for physicians to diagnose the accuracy of the diseases and timely treatment." He wished and congratulated the team Health Mapp for introducing the advanced diagnostic facility at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal.
In his presidential address, Dr H S Ballal congratulated Health Map Diagnostics Pvt Ltd (HDPL) for introducing the Advanced Positron Emission Tomography (PET-CT) at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal. He said, "The PET part assesses the functional aspect of the disease where it detects any abnormal function of the diseased cell, molecular interactions and pathways within the human body. The CT part gives anatomical characteristics of the diseased site. Together they form a powerful imaging tool that aids in the accurate management of various diseases.
"In oncology, this is used for staging, response assessment, recurrence detection of the majority of the cancers. Now, this is also being used as a predictor and prognostic marker for various targeted therapies. In neurology, this is used for early diagnoses (detects significantly earlier than other imaging modalities) of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, for diagnosis and classifying dementia etc. In cardiology it is mainly used for myocardial viability assessment post-MI, risk stratification in coronary artery disease (aids in decision making of invasive vs non-invasive management of cardiac ischemia), cardiac sarcoidosis, and infective endocarditis and also helpful to the physicians, to know infective foci in fever of unknown origin, assessing the extent of disease and treatment response in vasculitis, interstitial lung diseases, granulomatous disorders etc. With this facility, one more feather is added to the crown of the Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Care Center. It will be very helpful to the patient and doctors of Udupi and neighbouring districts and we will provide this advanced facility to the patients at the lowest rates in the state.”
Dr Sandeep Ballal gave an overview of Manipal HealthMap India Pvt. Dr Sumeet Suresh Malapure, head of the department of Nuclear Medicine gave a brief introduction about the state of the art PET-CT equipment to the guests.