From the June 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


There is strong adoption in the large academic centers but Siemens has also installed systems at Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology in New York, the Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester in New York and the Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in California.

“Even though we will see continued adoption in the academic medical centers, I think this signals that in the right market, it will have a place,” says Voorhees. In late November, GE received FDA clearance for its SIGNA PET/MR, which is now the second simultaneous PET/MRI on the market today. Previously, GE offered what it called its “trimodality solution,” in which the patient is transferred on a detachable table from the Discovery PET/CT 690 to the Discovery MR 750 in order to acquire the PET/MRI image.


But two separate systems occupy a lot of space, which is a critical element in a hospital, and the trimodality solution requires two or three separate exams. Because of those drawbacks, GE decided to develop the simultaneous solution. GE has currently sold 22 systems and 10 of them have already been delivered. The majority of the sites are academic institutions but it have also started deliveries in facilities that are not exclusively academic. Philips offers its Ingenuity TF PET/MR, which utilizes a separate PET scanner and MRI scanner on different ends of the patient table. Philips is not currently working on developing a simultaneous solution.

A few years ago, Philips anticipated that there would be significant growth in the PET/MRI sector but it is now noticing that no major developments are emerging and that the overall market is not showing much interest. “What the clinical community is struggling with is the cost of the equipment and the cost to maintain it,” says Shalyaev. “It’s relatively low throughput, not the same that you would get on an individual standalone machine.”

The doctor’s opinion
Dr. Winkler says that he is not interested in ever purchasing a PET/MRI. If he needs an MRI to complement a PET/CT then he would perform an MRI exam and then fuse the PET data later.

“The problem with a PET/MRI scanner is that it’s insanely expensive so it’s very hard to justify it in an environment where the dollars that you spend have to relate to outcomes in a positive way,” he says. He believes that you have to compromise the design of the MRI and the PET scanners in order to have a PET/MRI. “These are both technologies that are evolving — if you’re marrying a PET to an MRI, you’re acquiring a very expensive device and then you’re limiting the ability to improve or advance both the MRI and the PET devices over time.”

June 2015 Magazine

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