A state-of-the-art Nuclear Medicine Diagnostic and Therapy facility has been started at CARE Banjara Hospital, in Hyderabad. The facility includes a Dual Detector SPECT Gamma Camera and a High Dose Nuclear Medicine Therapy unit.

Dr K Kumaresan, chief of the Nuclear Medicine unit, told Pharmabiz.com that the Dual Detector SPECT Gamma Camera coupled to a powerful computer (Siemens ECAM with Esoft) was a sophisticated biplane scanning machine, which provides excellent image quality with least inconvenience to the patients.

The whole body bone scan, ECG Gated Cardiac SPECT, 360 degrees Brain Perfusion scan etc, are some of the special procedures that can be done very fast using this scanner. The High Dose Nuclear Therapy facility caters to the much-needed Radio-Iodine treatment for thyroid cancer patients. Currently this is the only nuclear medicine facility in Andhra Pradesh. Similar facilities are available only in four hospitals in the country - Adayar Cancer Hospital, Chennai; Kidwai Cancer Hospital, Bangalore; Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, Mumbai; and All-India Institute Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi.

Dr Kumaresan said radio tracer injections did not produce allergic reactions or side-effects. They were safe even in newborn children.

With the type of equipment available today, the accuracy of cardiac scan had gone up to such an extent that the cardiologists relied on nuclear scan to decide whether invasive tests like coronary angiogram was required at all for a patient.

He said conventional treadmill ECG tests were known to produce artefacts and forced the abnormal reports in many patients to go in for master health programmes. Earlier these patients used to go for angiogram unnecessarily for further clarification and reassurance.

For the population as a whole, nuclear scan would prove to be cost-effective in the management of coronary diseases, Dr Kumaresan said. The nuclear scan costs around Rs 7,000 and does not require hospitalisation. Even though angiogram costs only Rs 5, 000, other related tests and hospitalisation work out to Rs 12,000.