OREANDA-NEWS. July 09, 2015. Affidea today held a celebration to mark the inauguration of a new and innovative GE Healthcare PET-CT scanner at the company’s diagnostic facility in the Medical Center Hospital of Poznan, Poland.  Affidea, which has been providing diagnostic imaging services to patients and clinicians in Poznan and the Wielkopolska region for over seven years, has invested in GE Healthcare’s Discovery IQ, an advanced Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography molecular imaging system that combines a CT scan and a PET scan into one to give clinicians detailed information about diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders and heart disease2.  The new scanner, the first of its kind in Poznan and only the second in Central and Eastern Europe, offers a number of advantages over previous generation GE technology, positioning Affidea to support the future demands of Poland’s healthcare system as well as helping clinicians deliver better care to their patients.  Around 300 patients each month attend the Affidea Centre in Poznan.

Commenting on the centre’s latest investment, Dr. med. Raphael Czepczy?ski, Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Affidea in Poznan said, “The installation of this new PET-CT scanner is a great step forward for the people of Poznan and the surrounding region and symbolizes our commitment to offering premium diagnostic imaging, cancer detection and cancer treatment services in Poland.  The excellent image quality and the greater comfort for the patient mean it will become an essential tool in providing personalized care from disease detection right the way through to helping doctors assess the right course of treatment.”

The new scanner is only the second of its type in Central and Eastern Europe, the first having been installed at the Affidea PET-CT centre in Wroclaw, Poland in 2015.

Equipped with several new technology innovations, the GE Healthcare Discovery IQ has been designed to help clinicians deliver the best possible outcome for their patients.   The new LightBurst Detector delivers the highest sensitivity of any PET-CT, enabling excellent image quality with fast scans at low doses for greater patient comfort and care.    Because it has one of the largest axial field of view in the industry, patients can be scanned in as fast as four minutes in the fewest possible bed positions, helping to make the scanning process more comfortable for the patient.    The sensitivity of the scanner helps to deliver outstanding image quality for small lesion detectability, while the Q-Clear pioneering full-convergence reconstruction technology assists clinicians in earlier determination of how well a patient is responding to treatment.

“The speed, precision and safety performance of diagnostic tests directly affects the effectiveness of cancer treatment.  It is from these images doctors are able to plan and carry out therapy of the patient.  PET-CT is currently the most accurate method allowing diagnosis of cancer. Our machines work very efficiently, making our lab PET-CT in Poznan able to meet the needs of the entire province”, said Jaroslaw Furdal, CEO Affidea (formerly Euromedic).

Anna Kasprzak, General Manager of GE Healthcare Poland, said, “We’re delighted that the team at Affidea have chosen the Discovery IQ for their centre here in Poznan.  Together GE Healthcare and Affidea share a vision that new technology developments can bring great benefits to patients and their doctors.  Now the people of Poznan and the surrounding area will be served with one of the latest innovations for early disease diagnosis and monitoring, and we are pleased to be a part of that.”

1. Comparing Discovery IQ 5-Ring to other PET-CT scanners reported in ITN online comparison charts (April 2014).

2. A CT scan takes a series of X-rays all around the body and reconstructs them together using a computer.  A PET scan uses a very small amount of radioactive drug to show how tissues in the body are working.

About Affidea

Affidea (formerly Euromedic) offers premium diagnostic imaging, cancer detection and cancer treatment services, with a focus on delivering prompt yet thorough diagnoses and high quality treatments by working only with state-of-the-art technology and experienced medical professionals. Over the years Affidea has built a solid foundation in Private Public Partnerships. The company works closely with governments to provide essential diagnostic and cancer treatment services to populations across its ever-expanding European network. Affidea operates 145 Diagnostic and Cancer Treatment Centres in 14 countries across Europe. The company employs over 3,000 professionals, of which more than 570 are medical doctors. 

Affidea has been present in Poland since 2000. Its aim is not only to bring state of the art methods and tools for cancer treatment to the country, but also to increase access to these services for the Polish people.

About GE Healthcare:

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter - great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients. www.gehealthcare.com