KUALA LUMPUR, 21 JULY 2009—Two Penang hospitals have agreed to purchase GE Healthcare solutions in order to provide its patients state-of-the-art diagnosis and imaging of cancer services. Under the agreement, Penang Adventist Hospital and Mount Miriam Cancer Hospital will be expanding and improving services from their oncology departments, bringing the benefits of the latest Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography (PET/CT) cancer diagnosis technologies to more patients in the northern region.
Penang Adventist Hospital CEO Dato’Teddric Mohr said that this development extended the success of the Nuclear Medicine Department at Penang Hospital, the first hospital in Malaysia to offer PET/CT diagnosis. “Since the hospital installed a state-of-the-art GE Healthcare PET/CT system in 2007, over 1500 patients have benefited from the technology,” he said.
Mount Miriam Cancer Hospital CEO Tan Seang Aun said, “Discovery STe will be the latest diagnostic imaging system that Mount Miriam Cancer Hospital is embarking on [sic] for the benefit of our cancer patients and we are proud to have GE as a partner to provide the state-of-art PET/CT.”
Both executives added that the GE Discovery STe 16 systems that will be installed at both hospitals by the end of 2009 combine 16-slice CT—which provides highly detailed pictures of the patient’s anatomy—with PET in a single system.
GE Healthcare ASEAN molecular imaging manager, Jang Kwang Hee, said that in addition to diagnosing cancer patients, the equipment would also help in providing health care workers a better understanding of cardiovascular disease and neurological conditions, enabling physicians to plan more personalised courses of treatment and monitor responses to therapy more accurately.
According to the National Cancer Registry, a total of 21,773 cancer cases were diagnosed among Malaysians in Peninsular Malaysia in 2006. In this region the five most common cancers are breast, colorectal, lung, cervix and nasopharynx cancer.
Accelerate use of PET/CT in Malaysia
“PET/CT has a higher sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for detection of tumours, resulting in a more accurate staging of malignancies, both for the primary tumours as well as for lymph nodes and distant metastasis,” said Jang. “It is important we understand what a difference a PET/CT scan can make in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer—time is critical for cancer patients.”
“Adventist Hospital is a luminary demonstration site for most of GE Healthcare’s diagnostic equipment,” said Penang Adventist Hospital’s Mohr. “This latest partnership focuses two leading organisations on a significant opportunity to accelerate the use of PET/CT in Malaysia and improve the detection of cancers.”
“The use of PET/CT in the diagnosis and management of cancer has been a significant breakthrough in diagnostic care of cancer patients, uncovering valuable information on tumour location, size, and metabolic activity,” said GE Healthcare’s Jang. “It assists physicians in differentiating malignant and benign lesions, identify recurrences and metastases, and so help the clinical team plan the most appropriate treatment for the patient.”
