Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) and the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam (the Netherlands) today announced the opening of the Netherlands’ first PET/MR Imaging Center. This advanced new imaging modality will enable researchers at the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam to investigate new methods of diagnosing and treating cancer and neurological disorders. The center’s researchers will also use the system to study innovative ways of developing new drugs more efficiently and more cost-effectively.
The Philips Ingenuity TF PET/MR scanner that has been installed in the imaging center combines the molecular imaging capabilities of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with the superb soft tissue imaging capabilities of Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging. PET and MR have previously been used as separate and distinct imaging modalities, with each modality requiring its own suite of rooms to house the necessary equipment. Philips was the first company in the world to successfully overcome the technical challenges involved in bringing these two modalities into close physical proximity to create a commercial whole-body PET/MR scanner, so that sequential PET and MR images can be acquired in the same session. This allows very accurate overlaying of the PET and MR images so that clinicians can combine the functional and anatomical information provided by PET and MR respectively into a single fused image.
Philips and the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam have been collaborating intensively on medical imaging research since 2010. VUmc’s new PET/MR Imaging Center is the first step towards creating the VUmc Imaging Center Amsterdam, which by 2016 will house a comprehensive suite of medical imaging technologies including PET/MR, PET/CT, SPECT, ultrasound and optical imaging. The overall aim of the center will be to develop highly personalized treatment regimes for individual patients.
Installation of Philips PET/MR system at the VUmc
