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The National Physical Laboratory has developed a device to ensure that the correct dose is administered to the 670,000 patients that undergo nuclear medicine procedures every year at 240 NHS sites around the UK. The specialty is mostly for diagnostic scans on areas such as bone, lung perfusion, myocardium and the kidneys.

For most procedures, radioactive compounds are injected into the body to illuminate physiological images, taken with gamma cameras. The accuracy of the dose is crucial since a low dose can result in inconclusive images whereas a high dose could cause harm to the patient.

A new NPL instrument, called 'Fidelis,' allows medical physicists to check their in-house instruments against the UK national standards for radioactivity. NPL has a new Elekta linear accelerator used to set precise dosing standards. The Fidelis instrument is comprised of an ionization chamber designed by NPL and a new computer-controlled electrometer module from Southern Scientific Ltd.

Fidelis is an example of the NPL Technology Applied program, a co-branding scheme for instrumentation and software technology developed by NPL and incorporated into commercial products.

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK's National Measurement Institute and is a world-leading center of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate measurement standards, science and technology available. For more than a century NPL has developed and maintained the nation's primary measurement standards.

Find out more about NPL's Radioactivity research: http://www.npl.co.uk/server.php?show=nav.318

Read DOTmed's Industry Sector Report on linear accelerators, from the October 2008 issue of DOTmed Business News:
http://www.dotmed.com/news/story/7013/