NEUROTECHNOLOGY
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“You get information on a complex cellular level that you probably couldn’t get in any other way,” explains Peter Kingma, vice president of Siemens’s molecular imaging division. “Now if you can combine these two modalities in one examination, you can acquire both the PET and MR information. Then you’re in a situation where you can focus on the area in the brain where a specific bout of epilepsy is originating from, for example.”
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Siemens's new prototype MR-PET technology is expected
to provide new insights into brain disorders. |
Kingma says that the system provides a very precise level of detail. “You get a functional map of the activity around that focus with the MR, giving you special information about that portion of the brain and how it relates to other structures in the brain. You see the metabolic activity in that portion of the brain as the seizure develops in real time. This system enables clinicians to isolate where that burst of electrical impulse is being fired from,” says Kingma. “You can even do this while it’s being fired. As the patient goes into the seizure, you could be mapping this.” Current technology requires separate MRI and PET examinations.
“With MRI, you can produce functional information to some degree. You also have a high sensitivity to the pathology of the disease. With PET, you produce metabolic information. You produce contrast in the image, which is a function of metabolic activity and the utilization of glucose uptake of certain biomarkers, which are functionally dependent,” explains Kingma.
The integration of the two modalities into one platform enables clinicians to acquire data without moving the patient. “The gain in resolution and sensitivity, which is absolutely unmatched, is an incredible opportunity. And it’s an opportunity to use the same platform for the diagnostic delivery as well as the therapeutic delivery,” notes Kingma. “So although it is a research tool currently, I see it becoming a mainstream diagnostic tool, which definitely will change the way we look at Alzheimer’s. It could also change the platform that we use to evaluate the response and delivery of therapy to patients with Alzheimer’s.”
Testing of the prototype will begin before the end of 2007. “We’re probably 24 months away from this machine being in routine clinical delivery,” says Kingma. “There certainly will be opportunities under normal FDA guidelines for collaborations and research and proof-of-concept to be made available in certain discrete and agreed and controlled environments.”
Imaging companies like Siemens—traditional manufactures of imaging equipment, hardware, and software that are sold into hospitals—are in a state of constant assessment and evaluation of markets and market potential.
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Kingma says the
field of brain imaging is changing. |
“We see that our portfolio in the future will definitely be directly linked to the production of biomarkers as well as the production of imaging technology and that we would be offering solutions in both of these segments,” says Kingma. “In the future, molecular medicine will drive partnerships between pharma and imaging vendors that are currently only present to a very limited degree.”
And, accordingly, Siemens has invested fairly strongly in acquisitions related to laboratory testing and the development of biomarkers. Siemens’s recent acquisition of Diagnostic Products Corp. is an extension of that strategy. It is devoted to the research, development, discovery, and production of biomarkers focused on specific clinical outcomes. The research will be linked with Siemens’s production, design, and development of corresponding molecular-imaging technologies.
“So we’ll make the machines that do the studies on patients, and we’ll be supplying the biomarkers to do those studies in one seamless, integrated solution. That’s where we’re heading. We believe that we need to stimulate, control, and drive that side of the business as well, rather than just wait passively for others to design things that we may be able to utilize and incorporate.”
Kingma believes that the role of imaging companies has to change in the future. “If you look at the amount of investment that has been made by large-scale companies at this time in molecular medicine, you have to accept that the field is changing,” he says. “It certainly is a trend. If you want to be taken seriously in the medical imaging field now, you have to be able to provide both in vivo and in vitro solutions.”
