Innovative PET/CT scanner reduces exam time to 14 minutes, head to toe

LONDON, Ont. – Ashmeet Gill had her first PET-CT scan shortly after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the body’s immune system. She was nervous. Claustrophobia is an issue for the young Stratford resident and the scan, necessary to determine if the cancer had spread beyond the lymph nodes in her neck, would take 34 to 45 minutes, she was told.

Wrapped in a sheet and tucked inside the tube of the PET-CT at St. Joseph’s Health Care London (St. Joseph’s), Ashmeet, then 24, steeled herself to remain calm. But near the end of the scan, a sense of panic set in.

“It was not pleasant, but I endured it. I made it through.”

Ashmeet’s next PET-CT scan would be six months later, after six cycles of chemotherapy, to determine if the treatment had worked. She was terrified of another panic episode.

By then, however, St. Joseph’s had a brand-new PET-CT. And not just any machine – Canada’s first next-generation, state-of-the-art Omni 2 Legend PET-CT from GE HealthCare.

This time, Ashmeet’s scan took “barely 15 to 20 minutes,” she recalled.

“I thought, seriously? I couldn’t believe I was done. I was so happy.”

With the very first patients scanned with St. Joseph’s new PET-CT machine, it was obvious the breakthrough technology was living up to high expectations.

The machine is fast – in Ashmeet’s case decreasing the time it took from 45 minutes in her previous scan on another PET/CT system to less 14 with Omni Legend this time – head to toe. And the ability to precisely detect disease and tiny abnormalities is excellent.

“This is what we have been waiting for,” says Ting Yim Lee, a pioneer in the use of machines like PET-CT to gather new, vital information about diseases. “St. Joseph’s new Omni 2 Legend by GE HealthCare is answering the call for patients, clinicians and researchers alike.”

PET/CT is the medical ace in imaging for the assessment and treatment monitoring of cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. And at St. Joseph’s, the possibilities of this technology took a giant leap forward in August 2023, thanks in part to the generosity of donors and a $1 million contribution from St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation.

With the arrival of the new system, St. Joseph’s is set to become Canada’s first national GE HealthCare centre of excellence in molecular imaging and theranostics – a two-pronged approach to diagnosing and treating cancers and other diseases that merges molecular imaging with the use of radiopharmaceuticals to identify the location and extent of diseased tissues and selectively destroy the abnormal cells.

“The speed at which we can now do exams means significantly improved comfort for patients while the exceptional image quality changes the game in the hunt for cancerous lesions,” explains Ting, director of PET/CT Research at Lawson Health Research Institute (Lawson) and medical physicist at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

For young adults undergoing repeat PET/CT exams due to their medical conditions, managing radiation dose is critical,” explains Dr. Narinder Paul, Lawson scientist and chief, Medical Imaging, at St. Joseph’s. “These individuals already face an elevated life-time risk of developing cancer from radiation, and this risk further increases with additional exposures.”

For older adults, the time it takes for the examination is also of great concern. Lying still for long periods can be a hardship due to pain from bone metastases or other conditions, and is a challenge for those who have dementia, are claustrophobic or experiencing other issues, adds Dr. Paul.

“Reducing the exam time is a huge improvement in the patient experience for these individuals.”

At age 75, Shirley Pryde was beyond grateful for the shorter scan time. The senior, who is being treated for cancer of the urinary tract system, had previously suffered a traumatic experience with an MRI scan, which also requires patients to lie still inside a tube. This left her very apprehensive about the PET/CT she recently needed to assess the extent of the cancer.

“I was very nervous but when I called to book the scan at St. Joseph’s, the procedure was described to me and I was put at ease,” says Shirley. “And once I got there, the technologist was wonderful. Amazingly, the total amount of time I was in the machine was only about 10 minutes. I was very relieved. I can go for the next scan without the worry.”

While patients hail the new PET/CT experience, clinicians and scientists are raving about the machine’s imaging prowess. The advanced AI-driven image formation technology now empowers the precise detection of cancer within lymph nodes and other anatomical structures, “achieving remarkable accuracy even for very small lesions,” says Dr. Paul.