The department of Nuclear Medicine at Bombay Hospital has set up two new scanning procedures in collaboration with the Radiopharmaceuticals Division of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for imaging and diagnosing brain diseases and cancer. Till now the radiopharmaceuticals used for these scans had to be imported and patients had to wait for long time for their treatment. With the production of the new radiopharmaceuticals indigenously by BARC, these scanning procedures can be done everyday and the cost is very low.
The two techniques are: DAT Scan and HYNIC-TOC Scan. The former is a brain scanning technique using radiopharmaceuticals to diagnose Parkinson’s disease and assess the effect of treatment. HYNIC-TOC scan is a whole body scanning technique in which radiopharmaceuticals are used for diagnosis of neuroendocrine cancers.
These radiopharmaceuticals can now be formulated every day at the nuclear medicine department at Bombay Hospital using ready-to-use kits supplied by BARC.
Dr BA Krishna, Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine of Bombay Hospital said that the technique has been standardised and nine patients of Parkinson’s disease and eight patients of neuroendocrine cancers have been scanned so far with excellent quality images.
Dr MRA Pillai, Head of Radiopharmaceuticals Division, BARC expressed his satisfaction that the clinical studies done with the products developed by BARC are giving excellent images.
These products have been recently cleared by the Radiopharmaceuticals Committee (RPC) and BARC will start manufacturing the products on a larger scale to make it available for all Nuclear Medicine departments in the country.
EH News Bureau
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