Physics Technologies in Medecine (3/5)

by Dr. Alfred Buck, MD, MSc (University Hospital Zurich)

Wednesday 12 Jun 2002, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)

Modern medicine is a large consumer of physics technologies. The series of lectures covers medical imaging starting with an overview and the history of medical imaging. Then follows four lectures covering

• x-ray imaging
• positron emission tomography
• imaging blood flow by ultrasound
• magnetic resonance

Nuclear Medicine: PET Positron Emission Tomography Elucidating healthy and pathological human physiology with PET Positron emission tomography (PET) is the only tool that allows to non-invasively and quantitatively investigate human physiology and biochemistry in vivo. The method allows to measure glucose metabolism, aminoacid biochemistry, blood flow, receptor densities and neurotransmitter synthesis. These parameters are of interest in the healthy human and in disease. Of special importance is glucose metabolism (GM). The ligand used to investigate GM is a glucose analogue labelled with 18F, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). FDG enters the cell like glucose but cannot be completely metabolised. The intermediary product is trapped in the cell, accumulates and allows for excellent imaging. The amount of accumulated tracer is a quantitative measure for GM. Initially one was especially interested in GM of the brain. In disease GM is highly important in tumors and PET with FDG has become one of the major methods to evaluate cancer patients. Another application of PET concerns the working of the brain. Such studies are performed with labelled water (H215O). This tracer measures blood flow. Whenever areas in the brain are active, blood flow is increased and this increase can be measured with PET. The pattern of activations during specially designed tasks allows conclusions about information processing in the brain.

transparencies transparencies

Video in CDS Video in CDS