Thousands of men will benefit from a revolutionary 3D scanner that can increase prostate cancer detection rates by 50 per cent.
The machines perform a single full body scan – rather than multiple images like current technology – and can process an adult in five minutes and a child in one.
The first has been installed at the Royal Free hospital in London and will allow doctors to carry out 50 per cent more scans than with their previous device.
It means 400 extra scans a year for prostate cancer patients, and up to 5,000 more a year for cancer patients in general, at this hospital alone.
The £8m positron emission tomography (PET) scanner is 11 times more sensitive than the latest standard machine. Patients are exposed to half the radiation and can be scanned at least twice as fast, allowing for earlier diagnosis and treatment.
The machines perform a single full body scan, rather than multiple images like current technology, and can process an adult in five minutes and a child in one (stock image).
£8m positron emission tomography (PET) scanner is 11 times more sensitive than latest standard machine (stock image)
The first was installed at the Royal Free London hospital (pictured) and will allow doctors to carry out 50 per cent more scans than with their previous device.
Two more scanners are expected to be installed at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust in London and Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Thousands of people awaiting prostate cancer screening will benefit in the coming years.
The Royal Free London has one of the busiest cancer services in the NHS, receiving almost 50,000 referrals a year.
The new device means scanning time has been reduced from 20 to five minutes, freeing up capacity to see more patients within days of referral, rather than weeks.
“This is a very exciting development,” said Thomas Wagner, a consultant at Royal Free London. “The lower dose of radiation is a huge benefit to patients…and we can care for more patients.”
Dr Juliana Maynard, from the National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP), who will work with the hospital on research data, said the new technology would help detect prostate cancer “with unprecedented speed and accuracy”.
Mail’s End The Needed Prostate Deaths campaign has raised awareness of the disease which kills 12,000 people a year in the UK.
