QUEZON CITY -- The Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) today laid the grounds for the construction of a nuclear medicine center that will help make cancer diagnosis and treatment more affordable.
Nuclear medicine refers to a medical imaging that uses small amounts of radioactive materials called radiopharmaceuticals. Injected to a patient, these radiophramaceuticals produce images and are tracked by physicians through the use of specially designed cameras. Images of target tissues produced by these radiopharmaceuticals help physicians diagnose or treat a variety of diseases, including many types of cancers, heart diseases, and certain other abnormalities within the body.
Leading the groundbreaking ceremony was DOST Sec. Fortunato T. de la Peña, along with DOST Undersecretary for R&D Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara and DOST-PNRI Director Dr. Carlo A. Arcilla. The facility, called the Nuclear Medicine Research and Innovation Centre, will house a medical cyclotron and Positron Emission Tomography- Computed Tomography (PET- CT) Imaging Centers.
As such, the Centre will be the first government facility that houses a medical cyclotron and PET-CT scanners in one integrated setting.
“Through this Centre, cancer staging and management will be more affordable and reachable to the common Filipino people,” Sec. de la Peña said, emphasizing that the establishment of the Centre is “in line with the goals of universal health care for the Filipino people.”
Cyclotron and PET-CT scans
The Centre’s medical cyclotron will produce the PET radiopharmaceuticals which will be used to produce images that will help physicians diagnose almost all types of cancers, heart diseases, and neurological disorders.
In contrast to invasive procedures where doctors make incisions or punctures, PET-CT scans are non-invasive, clinically-proven, cost-effective, and safe procedures in investigating the condition of a certain organ or to confirm the suspicion of a disease.
Nuclear med training and R&D hub
Aside from helping make cancer diagnostics and treatment more affordable to Filipinos, Usec. Guevara informed that the Centre will also become a training hub for human resources development in the fields of PET radiochemistry; PET radiopharmaceutical production and quality control; and hybrid imaging services.
She also said that the establishment of the Centre will step up the country’s researches in new and emerging radiopharmaceuticals other than F18 FDG; novel radioisotopes for PET like metallic radiopharmaceuticals; treatment modality and management in oncology; neuro-related degenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and others; PET application in studying pulmonary inspections due to Covid 19; and radiation metrics and safety.
The Centre will likewise enable multi-disciplinary and collaborative research among physicists, physicians, pharmacists, chemists, molecular biologists, and others.
“This is also a personal advocacy,” said PNRI Director Arcilla who revealed that his own sister battled with cancer which was diagnosed late. “As this Centre will offer more affordable services, it will help in the early diagnosis of cancer which will have better chances of cure.”
Further, he informed that the radiopharmaceuticals to be produced by the Centre’s cyclotron facility will also be used in a cancer center that will be established shortly by the UP-Philippine General Hospital just beside the PNRI compound. The Centre is expected to complete its construction after one year.
This project is under the program “Innovating Nuclear Medicine Research and Services: Development of Emerging PET Radiopharmaceuticals for Early Cancer Staging and Assessment of Biologic Functions in Cancer Cells” led by Ms. Adelina DM. Bulos, with the assistance of DOST-PNRI S&T Fellow and former Balik Scientist Dr. Thomas Neil B. Pascual. (Nuclear Information and Documentation Section, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute)
