The VERITON received FDA 510(k) clearance at the end of April 2018 and CE approval in late May of last year.

PET beats SPECT for detecting coronary artery disease: study


PET still comes out ahead of SPECT for detecting severe obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), according to a study that came out of the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.

The facility, which switched from SPECT to PET in 2013, looked at the clinical outcomes of its 3,394 patients who underwent pharmacologic SPECT exams from 2011 to 2012 and 7,478 patients who underwent PET exams from 2014 to 2015. The study also included a retrospective analysis of catheterization outcomes 60 days after both of the treatments.

The results showed that PET scans diagnosed 79 percent of severe obstructive CAD cases and SPECT scans diagnosed 70 percent. Patients who underwent PET scans also had 12 percent lower incidence of invasive catheterization without identification of severe CAD.

“This has broad implications, as physicians consider what test best serves their individual patients, and institutions consider the advantages and disadvantages of SPECT and PET as well as downstream resource utilization,” said Dr. David Min, cardiologist and lead author of the study, at the time.

Total-body PET scanner produces landmark human images

A whole-body PET/CT scanner at UC Davis called the EXPLORER became the first system to capture a 3D image of the entire human body.

The EXPLORER – composed of roughly 8 to 10 times more materials and electronics and with 40 times lower radiation than a standard PET scanner – produced the high-quality image of the glucose metabolism process in less than a minute.

“We had some predictions but I don’t think anything prepared us for the very first scan when we got it. We were seeing things we had never seen before in a PET scan, and without a lot of optimization,” Simon Cherry, a professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at UC Davis, told HCB News at the time. “That, after so many years, was a very gratifying moment.”

Cherry and his partner, Ramsey Badawi, chief of nuclear medicine at UC Davis Health and vice chair for research in the department of radiology, are hoping to use the system to, for example, better view small lung lesions on PET scans of lung cancer patients, since they only have to hold their breath for a short time. The team also sees applications in pharmaceutical testing and pediatric studies.

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