Philips Led HYPERImage Project Advances Research on Hybrid PET/MR Scanner

Royal Philips ElectronicsAs leader of the European Union funded HYPERImage research project, Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) announced that the project has achieved a major milestone in its ambitious plan to create a new medical imaging technique called hybrid PET/MR. This new technique is based on the simultaneous acquisition of time-of-flight Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance (MR) images.

The project involves eight partners from six European countries and has a total budget of around EUR 7 million. The ultimate goals of the project are to advance the accuracy of diagnostic imaging in cardiology and oncology and open up new fields in therapy planning, guidance and response monitoring.

A hybrid PET/MR scanner could simultaneously deliver the anatomical and functional information achievable using state-of-the-art MR scanners (e.g. soft tissue contrast and physiological processes in blood vessels) and the molecular imaging information provided by PET. As a result, it would combine the best of both worlds, which could ultimately help to pinpoint and characterize disease sites within the body more accurately than is currently possible.

For a hybrid scanner that offers simultaneous PET and MR image acquisition, two fundamental problems need to be solved: the development of MR-compatible PET detectors and a method of accounting for PET attenuation (the scattering of high-energy gamma rays generated by the PET tracers by parts of the human body).

The milestone that the HYPERImage team has reached is the development of a functional gamma-ray detector that meets the performance requirements of the latest time-of-flight PET scanners. The new gamma-ray detectors have been designed to be compatible with the strong static and dynamic magnetic fields that would be present in a combined PET/MR scanner. Furthermore, the team has achieved major progress with respect to MRI-based static and dynamic PET attenuation correction. Details of these results are presented at the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, which takes place on October 25-31 in Orlando, Florida, USA.

"Understanding the molecular mechanisms associated with cardiovascular disease and cancer, and the development of technologies focused on the early detection of these disease processes are the two main challenges of biomedical research," said Prof. Dr. Valentin Fuster, Director of the National Center for Cardiovascular Research in Madrid (one of Europe's leading research centers in cardiology) and the Cardiovascular Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. "I am convinced that the realization of a PET/MR technology platform will significantly help to improve the precision and the moment at which disease is diagnosed, two critical parameters for the successful treatment of many diseases."

"The HYPERImage team’s combined expertise in semiconductor physics, signal processing and medical scanner design, together with its expert clinical knowledge, have moved the project an important step forward in the development of a new imaging tool that is intended to help clinicians diagnose and treat some of the world's most prevalent killer diseases, such as breast cancer," says Henk van Houten, senior vice president of Philips Research and head of Philips' healthcare research program. "I am proud to say that proof-of-concept of an MR-compatible PET detector took the team less than 1.5 years to achieve. It clearly demonstrates that good collaborations lead to very fast progress."

The HYPERImage consortium comprises three universities (King's College London, UK; Universität Heidelberg, Germany; and Universiteit Ghent - Institute for Broadband Technology, Belgium), three research foundations (Fundación Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares, Spain; Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy; and The Netherlands Cancer Institute, The Netherlands), a university medical center (Uniklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany) and the industrial partner (Philips, The Netherlands and Germany).

EU funding for the HYPERImage project, which is being provided as part of the EU's 7th Framework Program, amounts to around EUR 5 million. The consortium partners will provide an additional EUR 2.3 million. The project started in 2008 and will run for three years. Philips' leadership of the consortium is based on its experience in designing and developing medical scanners.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.hybrid-pet-mr.eu

Related news articles:

About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a diversified Health and Well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of "sense and simplicity". Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs more than 118,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 26 billion in 2008, the company is a market leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as lifestyle products for personal well-being and pleasure with strong leadership positions in flat TV, male shaving and grooming, portable entertainment and oral healthcare. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.

Most Popular Now

Using Data and AI to Create Better Healt…

Academic medical centers could transform patient care by adopting principles from learning health systems principles, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of California, San Diego. In...

AI Medical Receptionist Modernizing Doct…

A virtual medical receptionist named "Cassie," developed through research at Texas A&M University, is transforming the way patients interact with health care providers. Cassie is a digital-human assistant created by Humanate...

Northern Ireland Completes Nationwide Ro…

Go-lives at Western and Southern health and social care trusts mean every pathology service is using the same laboratory information management system; improving efficiency and quality. An ambitious technology project to...

AI Tool Set to Transform Characterisatio…

A multinational team of researchers, co-led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, has developed and tested a new AI tool to better characterise the diversity of individual cells within...

AI Detects Hidden Heart Disease Using Ex…

Mass General Brigham researchers have developed a new AI tool in collaboration with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to probe through previously collected CT scans and identify...

Human-AI Collectives Make the Most Accur…

Diagnostic errors are among the most serious problems in everyday medical practice. AI systems - especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4, Gemini, or Claude 3 - offer new ways...

MHP-Net: A Revolutionary AI Model for Ac…

Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer globally and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Accurate segmentation of liver tumors is a crucial step for the management of the...

Highland Marketing Announced as Official…

Highland Marketing has been named, for the second year running, the official communications partner for HETT Show 2025, the UK's leading digital health conference and exhibition. Taking place 7-8 October...

Groundbreaking TACIT Algorithm Offers Ne…

Researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a novel algorithm that could provide a revolutionary tool for determining the best options for patients - both in the treatment...

The Many Ways that AI Enters Rheumatolog…

High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is the standard to diagnose and assess progression in interstitial lung disease (ILD), a key feature in systemic sclerosis (SSc). But AI-assisted interpretation has the potential...