Interview with Professor Xu Wengui: In the Age of Nuclear Medicine, Cancer Is Not Terrible

How common are !---- tumors? National cancer data from the National Cancer Center tells us that about 4 million people with malignant tumors nationwide in 2019, an average of about 10,000 families a day, have to endure the desperate news that cancer has long been one of the world's biggest threats to human life and healthbut cancer is not invinciblethe fact that, as long as it is handled properly, one-third of cancers can be treated properly;so if we could get an immediate diagnosis and an instant treatment, the cancer would n'etre as we thought it would benuclear medicine is undoubtedly one of the sharp tools to help doctors overcome cancer at this stage, through PET/CT, PET/MR and other nuclear medical equipment to scan patients, doctors can accurately obtain the positioning of patients' lesions, qualitative, quantitative information, to help doctors accurately diagnose the patient's tumor situation, and to assist in the development of accurate clinical treatment programshowever, many reasons limit the development of nuclear medicine and even the "nuclear" word in the name of the subject, so that many ordinary people are afraid of this, what kind of discipline is nuclear medicine? What kind of development will the future be? Professor Xu Wengui, Chairman of the Professional Committee of Oncology And Nuclear Medicine of the Chinese Association of Cancer Society and Professor Xu Wengui of the Department of Molecular Imaging and Nuclear Medicine Of Tianjin Medical University Affiliated Oncology Hospital, brought us this answerProfessor Xu Wengui,, Chairman of the Committee of The Chinese Anti-Cancer Association's Oncology Nuclear Medicine Committee, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital spanned 40 years as early as the 1950s, nuclear medicine has entered ChinaHowever, nuclear medicine at that time belonged to the scope of defense science and technology, there was no real use for the detection or treatment of residents, it was not until 1974, the first commercial PET began to enter the clinicanother 16 years, the first full body PET put into useHowever, since every nuclide decay cannot be recorded, before pet/CT is available, doctors must first use radiation to determine the density of the lesions, calculate the degree of nuclide attenuation by analog, and make up for it with mathematical models when the images are rebuiltthese work to deal with, each PET imaging will take nearly an hour, limited medical resources really difficult to meet the huge needs of residents testingthe advent of PET/CT has helped nuclear medicine to make important leaps, with attenuation correction of the PET process being replaced by CT, which can be scanned in seconds and the time-consuming time of the entire inspection process being significantly reduced2003, major global manufacturers stopped the individual sales of PET, PET/CT and subsequent PET/MR, became the core equipment in nuclear medicine, began to play an important role in cancer treatmentdevelopment to this day, PET/CT applications have maturedin practice, molecular imaging, as a qualitative and quantitative research method for cell and molecular processes in living conditions, has obvious advantages in early diagnosis, staging and re-stage, efficacy evaluation, detection of tumor recurrence and metastasis, and guiding radiotherapy at the same time, another "soul element" that affects the development of nuclear medicine, the tracer, completes the leap of the same single ingredient towards the targeted "special disease agent" PET/CT commonly used tracer 18F-FDG (fluorodedex deoxygenation glucose), but with the advance of precision medicine, major hospitals, GE pharmaceutical and other enterprises have begun to target different diseases, try to develop some new, more accurate reaction to metabolic conditions of tracers, and even the preparation of a tumor-targeted diagnosis and treatment of radiological drugs, towards the integration of radiological diagnosis and treatment related results, such as epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) play an important role in the development of a variety of cancers, such tracers for many epidermal growth factor expression abnormal tumors have obvious specificity; Diseases such as disorder (MCI), Alzheimer's disease (AD), cortical degenerative disease (CBS) and progressive nucleosteroid palsy (PSP), and the development of patent tracer agents in some companies, such as GE Pharmaceuticals, which uses GE-180 tracer to distinguish nerve inflammation from tumors, have also been introduced in the country In addition to research and development, the preparation of tracer is also the key to the innovation of nuclear medicine tracer is divided into positrons and single photon tracers generally speaking, the tracer used by the hospital is obtained in two ways: outsourcing and hospital self-preparation but the tracer is different from ordinary drugs, need to make an appointment in advance of the patient, daily on-site production , if the entire preparation process can be automated, fine, will certainly help doctors to significantly improve the quality and yield of tracers, stable and continuous service to the clinical is nuclear medicine safe? By understanding the history of nuclear medicine, we can clearly understand the importance of nuclear medicine, but the safety of nuclear medicine may need to be explained from its principles Professor Xu Wengui, , said: We can't see the internal tissues of the human body directly through both eyes, but through nuclear medicine, we can indirectly understand the tumor information in the patient's body in some clever way because the tumor lesions for grape pain, amino acids and other physiological needs of compounds or metabolic substrates will have different metabolic modes and absorption, then as long as we use the nuclides of positron sewerides to mark these compounds, in the human body, can be obtained by PET markers in the lesions of the chemical image, it is integrated CT or MR image, we can understand the biological metabolism information at the same time to obtain accurate anatomical positioning, so as to make a comprehensive and accurate judgment of the disease understand the principle, it's easy to explain the radiation problem radiation that the public cares about, it comes more from isotope markers in tracer generally speaking, doctors need to inject radioactive isotope drugs or take them orally to the human body before being examined However, in the case of 18F-FDG injected with PET/CT scans, it has a half-life of 105-115 minutes, which will approximately decay completely within a day patients can almost ignore the effects of radioactivity on the human body, but also need to note that the radiation effect is cumulative, patients also need to communicate with the doctor to improve the recent nuclear medical examination status, in order to further consider whether to continue nuclear medical examination , although nuclear medicine has undergone great development, but still face certain problems, need medicine, doctors, society to solve specifically, Professor Xu Wengui summed it up in three directions one is the amount of tracer preparation, which is one of the best indicators of the development of the industry due to high cost, technical constraints and other factors, nuclear medical examination is relatively expensive, China's preparation amount from the United States, Japan and other countries there is a certain gap in terms of standardization, nuclide production technology and medical nuclide quality control programs also need to be popularized the second is the control of nuclear medical equipment and the training of nuclear medicine personnel until 2018, PET/CT will be reclassified by Class A equipment as Class B equipment, the provincial health and sanitation commission has the ability to purchase, China's PET/CT holdings continue to rise , however, although the number of relevant practitioners has also increased, but has not yet fully filled the gap The third is the understanding of nuclear medicine between doctors and patients The promotion of technology requires the common recognition of doctors and patients, and the market can move it forward only when the public recognizes the value of it good in the direction of nuclear medicine has been moving forward, under the policy, more medical institutions are building nuclear medicine capabilities, more medical scholars began to enter nuclear medicine research, and the people's trust in nuclear medicine is gradually established is no long time, the efforts of all walks of life, this new discipline is booming era of nuclear medicine at all, perhaps not far away Source: MedSci !-- Content Presentation Ends -- !-- Determines Whether login ends