von Schulthess, Gustav

RERO DOC Digital Library

European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Vol. 31, No. 6, June 2004926Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging (2004) 31:926DOI 10.1007/s00259-004-1515-zPublished online: 18 March 2004© Springer-Verlag 2004Requirements for clinical PET: the situation in SwitzerlandDear Sir,I would like to comment on the article by Bedford andMaisey referring to the availability and requirements forclinical PET in Europe [1]. While this may be a minorpoint, Tables 3 and 5 both state that there are no PETscanners in Switzerland, although Prof. Maisey is wellaware of our work. This is somewhat surprising. To clarify matters:1. There are currently two PET-CT and seven PET scan-ners in Switzerland, a somewhat indeterminate fractionof which are used for research purposes (around two).2. The number of scans done for NSCLC in Switzerlandin 2003 was 1,582; thus underuse of PET in NSCLCin Switzerland is slightly more than 1,000, accordingto Table 3.3. The suggestion that 2,500–2,600 patients can bescanned on a single PET scanner (Table 3, secondcolumn, row Switzerland) may be correct in principle,but in practice I would be interested to know who inEurope is able to examine this many patients on a single scanner. Note that we did 2,100 PET-CT scanson a single PET-CT scanner in 2003, which is al-ready a substantial load. It should not be forgottenthat the number of scans done on a PET scanner isvery much dependent on the type of scanner, the scan-ning protocol and, probably above all, the availabilityof FDG.Gustav von Schulthess (✉)Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Medical Radiology,University Hospital, Rämistrasse 100, 8091 Zurich, Switzerlande-mail: Gustav.vonschulthess@dmr.usz.chReference1. Bedford M, Maisey MN. Requirements for clinical PET: com-parisons within Europe. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging2004;31:208–221Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging (2004) 31:926–927DOI 10.1007/s00259-004-1513-1Published online: 18 March 2004© Springer-Verlag 2004Requirements for clinical PET: clarification of the situation in SwedenDear Sir,We read with great interest the paper by Bedford andMaisey in which a method for assessing the requirementsfor introduction of positron emission tomography (PET)as a cancer imaging service was presented [1]. Studieslike these, which attempt to objectify the actual need fora medical service, are important. We understand thatsimplifications had to be made in the study, and that theauthors had to rely on the information most readily ob-tainable from different national sources.Nevertheless, basic facts need to be as correct as pos-sible, and we observe that neither the cited number ofdedicated PET cameras nor information on their use forclinical examinations in Sweden is correct. The numberof dedicated (human) PET scanners is stated to be seven,while there have never been more than a maximum offive in our country. One of them is an old and inefficientcamera with limited usefulness, and this can hardly beincluded in the current survey. Consequently, there are in reality only four dedicated PET cameras in use inSweden.Furthermore, while Sweden has had a very active andlong-standing tradition in PET (in Uppsala and Stock-holm), this tradition has to a very large degree been directed towards basic research and methodological de-velopments. It is only during the past few years that clin-ical PET in Sweden has achieved a “breakthrough” com-parable to that happening internationally. Consequently,a correction regarding the number of cameras, similar tothat made for the UK (Table 4 in the paper), is also nec-essary for Sweden. It is stated that in the UK there are 13dedicated scanners, of which seven are in clinical useand six are research instruments. In Sweden, two dedi-cated PET cameras are effectively used for clinical pur-poses. This moves us from the authors’ calculated posi-tion of number 2 in Europe (with 196.07% of the numberof scanners required), to sixth position, with only56.02% available. After this adjustment, we lack twoscanners instead of having an excess of three, accordingto the authors’ model of estimated needs!We would like to emphasise that we do not intend tocriticise the authors’ work or the method they present.We acknowledge that it is very difficult to analyse theimaging situation in accurate detail in all 36 differentcountries included. However, we do need to correct the unfortunately misleading information regarding thenumber of dedicated PET cameras currently available

Requirements for clinical PET: the situation in Switzerland

http://doc.rero.ch/record/315622/files/259_2004_Article_1515.pdf

Requirements for clinical PET: the situation in Switzerland

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

RERO DOC Digital Library