United Imaging, a global leader in advanced medical imaging and radiotherapy equipment, announced that the uEXPLORER, the company's state-of-the-art digital two-meter total-body PET/CT, has arrived and is being installed at the Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Building in Grand Rapids. This site on "Medical Mile" is where innovator Bold Advanced Medical Future (BAMF) Health chose to locate the the country's first theranostics clinic to install a total body PET; this center and the uEXPLORER system will be focused on how molecular imaging and theranostics are used in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Key leaders were on hand on May 9th to witness the gantries roll into the cutting-edge facility. BAMF Health broke ground on their clinic, radiopharmacy, and North American headquarters at Michigan State University's Grand Rapids Innovation Park in August 2021, where it expects to treat thousands of cancer patients from around the country.
"This is a milestone and a win for patients above all else." asserted Jeffrey Bundy, Ph.D, CEO of United Imaging Healthcare Solutions. "BAMF Health is absolutely revolutionizing cancer and disease treatment here in the U.S., and the way they have intentionally designed their facility and brought our technology into play to focus on the idea of getting from diagnosis to treatment in the same day is game changing. That's why they are ideal partners to use our medical imaging equipment: they believe as we do that the unique capabilities of our technology serve a higher purpose and can help them take patient outcomes to a different level."
United Imaging's uEXPLORER is the world's first and only medical imaging 3D scanner capable of capturing the entire human body in a single bed position. As part of United Imaging's all- digital PET/CT portfolio, uEXPLORER accomplishes total-body (two-meter) imaging in one acquisition in as little as 30 to 240 seconds, while allowing for fast and continuous tracking of tracer distribution in blood, organs, and tissues throughout the body. The uEXPLORER offers unparalleled support for pharmacokinetic studies and radiation dose evaluation and has a wide range of applications, from improving diagnostics to tracking disease progression to enabling research of new therapies. For example, uEXPLORER can be used to better visualize both the primary cancer mass and metastis dynamically at the same time.
A uPMR 790 will also be installed this summer. The uPMR 790 PET/MR has at its core the innovative uEXPLORER technology. It integrates the strengths of next-generation SiPM-based HD TOF (time of flight) with a 32 cm axial FOV (field of view) and 3T MRI with the United Compressed Sensing (uCS) platform. These technologies taken together redefine clinical PET/MR imaging.
"The clinical combination of the PET/MR and PET/CT technology is unmatched in this country." Dr. Anthony Chang, the founder and CEO of BAMF Health said. "To be able to bring that sophisticated care to the patients of our local community and from around the U.S. is very gratifying, and the emphasis BAMF Health and United Imaging both place on our missions(Enabling Patients To Become People Again and Equal Healthcare for All, respectively) tells the story of why we're doing what we do. And we've only just begun."
