An alternative platform for Molecular Imaging research in Malaysia

Transferring of the PET-CT technology to University Malaya Medical Center enable more clinical services as well as provides an alternative platform for molecular imaging research in order to make contribution in Genome project.

Malaysia has its PET-CT Imaging system a few years ago which is installed in the Penang. During that time, the radionuclide sources using for imaging purpose were directly bought from Singapore. This is consider not practicable and cost-effective as the radionuclide with its short physical half-life needs to travel for a long distance away from Singapore Island to Penang Island (about 2-3 hours by flight). After Putrajaya Hospital and Wijaya International Medical Center had installed the Malaysia first (GE, USA) and second (Siemen, USA) Cyclotron generator, the radionuclide sources can be obtained with a nearer distance and faster available time. Only the issue is we are waiting them (radionuclide producer) to get GMP license so that the radionuclide can be commercialized.

UMMC is making its statement and preparation to face the challenges. The advance of the technology is the state-of-art medical imaging system for clinical and preclinical usage. The beauty of this system is in its applications in biological tissue either human or animal. The most interesting topic that hit the research world is molecular imaging that makes the diagnosis on molecular state a possibility. The beneficial of it is enable users detect changes in genes which alarming the occurrences of the cancer in human body. I believe it is the latest method that promote “curing is better than preventing” in cancer issue.

I wish that UMMC could successfully install PET-CT and Cyclotron in 5 years time, from confirming the tender till it starts deliver services to the public and animals. I hope that a special investigation committee (or maybe it has already?) should be formed beside the management and scientific committees, in order to investigate the progress of the work and make sure it is efficient and transparency. The RM 40 million is not a small amount of money which is collected from Malaysian’s income tax, and it should give the maximum beneficial to all.