A new cyclotron recently joined the existing cyclotron in the Dept. of Medical Biophysics and Nuclear Medicine at Hadassah-Ein Kerem headed by Prof. Roland Chisin. In what was described as a “nail-bitingly” endeavor, a crane cautiously lowered the 20 ton machine into a radiation-proof bunker five floors below ground. Then, the roof of the bunker had to be sealed with a concrete radiation shield that weighed 75 tons, which was put in place one 25-ton layer at a time. The installarion took several hours and involved the combined efforts of three cranes and many people.
“Once the new cyclotron was up and running, we began upgrading the original machine,” said Prof. Eyal Mishani who heads the department’s Cyclotron Radiochemistry Facility. “We’ll then connect the two so they’re controlled by one computer system, which will allow us to be very flexible in production.”
Connecting two cyclotrons to one another and to the production robot in the biochemistry lab is very rare. There are only a handful of other such systems anywhere in the world.
The new cyclotron was acquired to provide state-of-the-art synthesis and produce radioactive materials used in the highly advanced diagnostic technology known as PET or positron emission tomography. The PET manufactures radio-labeled molecules that are injected into patients and visualized on the PET monitor producing vivid and very accurate three-dimensional images of the patients’ organs and tissues. Because the PET shows metabolic and biochemical activity along with the anatomical information other imaging methods disclose, it enables physicians to diagnose and evaluate cancers and other disorders with extreme precision.
Hadassah’s Cyclotron Unit has been operating at Hadassah for 13 years. In 2009 alone Hadassah performed 3,200 PET scans based on tracers generated by the Cyclotron. Hadassah also manufactures materials for other hospitals, which used them to perform an additional 7,000 scans.
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