It’s easy to be impressed with the technology.
That’s because when the Seidman Cancer Center opened in June at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, it housed the first Philips Ingenuity PET/MRI machine in Ohio and the first in a cancer clinical-care setting. The only other whole-body, combined positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging machine in the United States is at Mount Sinai Medical Center in
New York.
Winner: Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals Case Medical Center and BioEnterprise
Project: Establishment of a Global Advanced Imaging Innovation Center
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The machine, which combines two disease detection technologies into one unit, is just the first installation in the Global Advanced Imaging Innovation Center, a partnership between Philips Healthcare, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center that will bring Philips technology to University Hospitals for research and clinical usage.
“The partnership brings together leading clinical and academic institutions and staff, with a focus of improving patient care,” says Jeff Kaste, a director of X-ray computed tomography and nuclear medicine program management for Philips Healthcare, based in Cleveland. “This provides the ideal environment for Philips to integrate clinical
testing and feedback with its research, development and product commercialization operations.”
A $5 million Ohio Third Frontier Commission grant and an additional $33.4 million investment by Philips, which is based in the Netherlands, fund the new center. It has the potential to create new jobs in Northeast Ohio for technicians and physicians who use the technology. But its reach will be felt in patient care worldwide.
“Ultimately, making these technologies accessible throughout the globe can change the trajectory of how health care is delivered as a whole and can change the outcome of millions of lives,” Kaste says.
Philips invested in Northeast Ohio because of its rich history in medical imaging technology and the growing number of related companies in the area, Kaste says. In addition, its Cleveland offices are nearby University Hospitals, CWRU’s School of Medicine and BioEnterprise, which helped coordinate the partnership.
The PET/MRI hybrid combines MRI’s clear picture of soft-tissue anatomy with PET’s view of physiology at the molecular level. Together, they should help physicians better understand causes, effects and disease processes, allowing for earlier diagnoses and treatment of cancer and ultimately other conditions.
Each scan takes about two hours to complete, says Dr. Pablo Ros, chairman of the radiology department at University Hospitals and the Theodore J. Castele university professor at CWRU. But combining MRI with PET scans has the potential to provide very detailed images of the brain, head, neck and pelvis, places where CT scans are limited.
Even conventional CT is changing, however. In June, as part of the Global Advanced Imaging Innovation Center, University Hospitals installed a new Philips CT scanner in its radiology department that reduces radiation exposure by 60 to 80 percent.
In addition, Ros says, the speed of the unit coupled with low radiation makes it ideal for pediatric patients who might normally have to be sedated before a scan. “Since it is so fast, it stops movement,” he says. “So you could have a kid moving and still have sharp pictures.”
With the creation of the new center, Philips has added new positions to its staff of 1,100 in Cleveland to help manage the partnership. It expects to add more within the next five years, but the impact goes deeper in the retention of jobs in the area, both at Philips and its supply chain.
University Hospitals is in the process of hiring physicians interested in researching how the use of technology impacts patient outcomes.
“We know the potential, but we haven’t realized it yet,” Ros says. He speaks passionately about both new pieces of equipment but is most excited to see how the new PET/MRI will benefit patients. “It’s a beautiful marriage,” he says of the technology.
But he could also say that of the partnership that created the Global Advanced Imaging Innovation Center.