by
Nancy Ryerson, Staff Writer | June 17, 2013
From the June 2013 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
If all goes according to plan
Back at Northern California PET Imaging Center, Tesar and other PET advocates have high hopes for future applications and combinations of PET tracers that will allow doctors to create a more patient-specific health care plan, especially for brain imaging.
Currently, the radiologists there use FDG along with Amyvid, both distributed from Siemens’ PETNET, to create a more complete picture of a patient’s brain.
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FDG scans show where glucose is in the brain and reveals patterns that indicate what kind of dementia the patient has. Tesar says the facility hasn’t decided whether FDG or Amyvid should go first in the diagnostic process, but that taken together, a physician can have a much clearer picture of the patient’s chance of having Alzheimer’s disease.
“From a health economics standpoint, it’s probably a tough pill to swallow, but clinically it really does help describe a much better picture for the patient,” she says.
Even if it takes some time for health care leaders to swallow the high cost of PET, overall, analysts expect PET to grow again after having experienced a slowdown, according to Millennium Research Group.
That means one of the industry’s newest tracers for neurology might have a chance to make its way into the market. A new tracer acquired by Eli Lilly from Siemens PETNET this April lights up tau, tangles in brain cells that indicate Alzheimer’s progression. It’s currently in phase zero, but Edgar Alvarez, director of global marketing for Siemens
PETNET solutions says the tracer could ultimately fit in well with an Alzheimer’s treatment plan.
Going forward, Siemens hopes its distribution of Amyvid and sodium fluoride tracers as well as other radiopharmaceuticals will help move focus on PET away from just FDG.
“The nice thing about Amyvid’s approval is that it shows PET goes beyond glucose metabolism, that it can provide additional clarities and different indications that weren’t necessarily thought of for PET,” says Alvarez. “Our initiative is to get awareness out in terms of what PET can offer.”
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