Seidman Cancer Centre makes progress
One significant issue that emerged during the media tour of booths at the just-ended annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), in Chicago, Ohio and the subsequent tour of the University Hospitals (UH) Seidman Cancer Centre, Cleveland, is the relevance of using modern medical imaging technology in oncological and neurological care.
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The use of imaging systems in healthcare, provides clinicians with a better opportunity to conduct studies in oncology imaging, find lesions and measure tumour activity with unprecedented accuracy.
One of the largest partners of the centre is Philips Healthcare, which operates in four main business areas. These are imaging systems, patient care and clinical information, home healthcare solutions and customer services.
The centre is dedicated to providing innovative radiology solutions, developed in partnership with clinicians and customers, to transform the way care is delivered, saving lives and improving the quality of life for patients.
Innovative treatments
Dedicated to innovative treatments and leading edge clinical research through more than 3000 ongoing studies aimed at cancer treatment and prevention, the Seidman Cancer Centre provides patients with access to the nation's top experts, advanced treatments through the use of modern medical imaging technology, from orientation to survivorship.
It offers mobile PET-CT mobile services, MRI, digital mammography, breast imaging in ambulatory centres and regional hospitals and brings together scientists and physicians to test and evaluate new imaging technology.
During a group tour of various departments of The University Hospital and Seidman Cancer Centre in Cleveland, executives from the hospital briefed media personnel on operations of the hospital and its ongoing clinical innovation programmes.
Presentations
In his presentation, Dr Ron Dziedzichi, Chief Operations Officer, University Hospitals Case Medical Centre, said the hospital was founded in the 1860s and its original mission was to give healthcare to war victims.
He said today, the facility is a complex medical set-up and an integrated health institution, seeing 4.5 million out-patients a year, adding that the facility with 18 medical research departments, also provides medical education and training.
President of the UH Seidman Cancer Centre, Dr Nathan Letan, said in 1976, physicians at the centre performed the first bone marrow transplant and in 1998, Dr Sanford Markowitz, discovered genetic link to colon cancer among certain families, launching colon cancer sibling study.
He said the centre invested massively in equipment, hence it's collaboration with Philips Healthcare, adding that it had invested $34 million in Proton therapy, which provides a superior modality in radiation care, ensuring that radiation reached tumours effectively.
A radiologist at the centre, Dr Karin Hermman, who briefed the media on the operations of her department, said the important feature of using both the CT, a special type of X-ray imaging and the magnetic imaging equipment, helped produce fast and efficient imaging of structures, such as the liver, lungs, head, brain, and adipose tissue (fat) and was widely used in oncology to locate tumours and metastasis, not only revealing their presence but also their location, size and extent.
The media team had earlier visited the Philips CT factory also in Cleveland.