OREANDA-NEWS. August 28, 2015. PET-Technology, RUSNANO’s portfolio company, has opened a new nuclear medicine center in Tambov. Its purpose is to provide local residents with up-to-date cancer diagnostic methods. Over 180 million rubles have been invested in the construction and equipment of the center. Alexander Nikitin, Acting Head of the Tambov Region Administration, Vladimir Krugly, member of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, and Anatoly Chubais, Chairman of the Executive Board of RUSNANO, attended the opening ceremony.

Opening the center in Tambov is another stage of the PET-Technology program to set up a chain of such centers in the Central Federal District (CFD). Similar diagnostic centers were earlier set up in Lipetsk and Kursk in April 2015.

Establishing the chain of nuclear medicine centers is a project of high social importance, since cancer is one of the two leading causes of death in Russia. The Tambov center is provided with PET/CT scanning equipment, which is one of the most accurate and up-to-date cancer diagnostic tools. It allows diagnosing the disease early on, defining treatment tactic, and controlling its effectiveness without resorting to unnecessary and more often than not costly methods.

The Tambov center can conduct up to 5 thousand examinations annually. The procedure takes no more than 2-3 hours and has no negative impact on the organism. Besides Tambov residents, the center can admit patients from the neighboring regions of Russia. The diagnostic service will be free for Tambov residents, as it is part of the state medical care program covered by mandatory medical insurance. The center can also provide fee-paying services, and their cost will be lower than in foreign clinics.

Apart from the innovative equipment, another advantage of the center is its proximity to the Tambov regional cancer early treatment clinic. As a result, a unified cancer patient care system is created and the cutting edge cancer diagnostic system at the PET-Technology center is supplemented by the medical care system provided by the early treatment clinic.

The PET-Technology chain in the CFD also has its own production facilities to manufacture radiopharmaceuticals (RP) which are required for PET/CT. The facilities are located in Yelets (Lipetsk region), and special-purpose vehicles are used to deliver the product to Lipetsk, Kursk and Tambov. The output of the pharmaceuticals produced in Yelets is aligned to the patient admission schedules at each center supplied. The established PET-Technology delivery system allows carrying radiopharmaceuticals to a distance of up to 500 km.

The chain of the CFD PET-Technology nuclear medicine centers is part of a larger federal PET-Technology chain. This is the first nationwide chain of its kind set up as state-private partnership. It first center was successfully launched in Ufa in spring 2014. In 2016-2017, more chain PET centers are to be opened in Novosibirsk, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Kaluga, Orenburg, Perm, Izhevsk, and Vladivostok.

Positron emission computed tomography (PET/CT) is a radionuclide tomography method for imaging human internal organs. The method is based on detecting pairs of gamma rays appearing in the process of positron annihilation with electrons. Positrons are released in the course of beta decay of the radionuclide present in the radiopharmaceutical introduced intravenously prior to examination and accumulated selectively in tumor tissues.

The method is based on using a special detector (PET scanner) to trace distribution of biologically active compounds marked with positron emitting radioisotopes in the organism. The positron emitting isotopes currently used in PET are mainly those of second period elements, most commonly fluorine-18, which has optimal PET characteristics: the longest half life and the smallest radiation energy.

Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a glucose analog, is most commonly used for positron emission tomography. Its molecule contains radioactive (positron emitting) fluorine-18 nuclide (18-FDG). FDG is injected to the patient and subsequently spreads over the entire organism. Tumor cells consume glucose much more intensively than others, and this allows detecting areas where the radiopharmaceutical (FDG) is accumulated, i.e. tumor cell clusters, using PET scanner.

To obtain fluorine-18, cyclic accelerators such as medical cyclotrons or, less commonly, linear accelerators are used. The target is typically pure or oxygen-18 saturated water which is subjected to proton bombardment. Oxygen-18 is in turn obtained by low temperature rectification.