Combined PET/MRI scanner to advances study of traumatic brain injury

Episode # 70
Uploaded: September 21, 2011
Running Time: 02:36

CROWN: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.

The Clinical Center is now home to a new Biograph mMR, a fully integrated whole-body simultaneous PET/MRI scanner. The Clinical Center acquired the new simultaneous PET/MRI to contribute to the study of traumatic brain injury and related post traumatic stress disorder in order to advance the treatment of our service men and women at Walter Reed National Navy Medical Center.  The combined MR/PET scanner was purchased by the  Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, a Department of Defense funded research program between intramural NIH and the  Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The scanner will be used to evaluate war-wounded service members suffering from traumatic brain injury, says  Dr. David Bluemke, director of the Radiology and Imaging Services at the NIH Clinical Center. But it will also be helpful in furthering the Clinical Center’s study of other areas, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. 

BLUEMKE: The MRI and the PET scanner puts two really powerful imaging tools together. The MRI shows us where the abnormalities are in the body. But the PET helps us tell the metabolic activity of that tumor or area in the brain that’s abnormal. So, it puts the two most powerful tools that we have for imaging together in one unit.

CROWN: Because the new device does not include a combination of computer tomography, patients scanned with the BioGraph mMR system are exposed to no radiation, compared to separate PET/CT scanners which do contain some radiation. The technology may also help ease the burden on patients who often have to undergo multiple testing.

BLUEMKE: For patients I think there is going to be major change. They end up going from one place to the other. They get one test and that leads to yet another test. And as physicians we often have that problem, too. We look at the tests and we often don’t have all the information. So now we should be in a position where patients should be able to get all of this comprehensively at one time.

CROWN: Bluemke adds that if the disease or condition can be identified early, patients have a much better chance of being treated successfully.

BLUEMKE: With an MRI/PET we’ll get all that information for the patient at the same time and we’ll also avoid a lot of complications in bringing the information all together behind multiple modalities all together in one place for one diagnosis.

CROWN: From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Ellen Crown, at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

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