Optimization of whole-body imaging for routine clinical care in AVL
The scientific impact will focus on providing clinical data to prove feasibility of improved PET/CT imaging, maintaining high level clinical care for our patients and validating new technical innovations in routine clinical practice with real-world data.
This project has clear patient, societal and economical benefit. With the projected increase in general healthcare costs and healthcare demand in the Netherlands the coming years, the healthcare system is under pressure. In parallel, with a budget cap in overall healthcare budget and continued increasing shortage in healthcare personnel, on a governmental level, the healthcare system needs to be reformed. At the same time, on a hospital level, day-to-day clinical routine needs to be optimized and simplified to cope with this increasing healthcare demand, and reducing costs without additional personnel. Utilizing the newest techniques in medical molecular imaging, the LAFOV PET/CT allows optimization of day-to-day clinical routine in the diagnostic Nuclear Medicine department. From a societal impact, LAFOV PET/CT allows shorter scan times, increasing patient comfort and throughput (i.e. more PET/CT scans can be performed in a day), addressing the increasing healthcare demand in both the short- and long-term.
Simultaneously, due to higher system sensitivity, amount of radioactive tracer used for image acquisition can be reduced, maintaining image quality (upholding high level clinical care) and simultaneously limiting ionizing radiation exposure to the general public, in particular to patients and family members (relevant for the long-term). In parallel, these optimizations have an economic impact; reducing the amount of radiopharmaceutical required and increasing patient turnover, reduces overall healthcare costs without the need for more healthcare personnel.
Scientific impact will be focused on providing clinical data to prove feasibility of a high- throughput LAFOV PET/CT, maintaining high level clinical care for our patients and to validate new technical innovations in routine clinical practice with real-world data.
