CSU Animal Cancer Center installs new PET-CT

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

FORT COLLINS - Colorado State University's Animal Cancer Center has installed the nation’s first PET-CT on site within a veterinary teaching hospital and animal cancer center. It’s a GEMINI TF Big Bore PET/CT scanner from Philips Healthcare - the first commercial installation in North America. The instrument, which was paid for with a series of federal grants and a CSU university match, is big enough to scan horses and incorporates a 16-slice CT scanner (much faster than the ACC’s former single-slice scanner).

Dr. Susan Kraft, director of imaging research, says the PET-CT represents the final piece in the ACC’s suite of imaging instruments, which now includes the same group of instruments used in human cancer. She also says that the ACC’s new radiation therapy instrument, the Varian Trilogy linear accelerator, puts an unprecedented combination of imaging equipment for diagnosing and treating pets with cancer under one roof. The technology is helping the cancer doctors there have a much more accurate picture of their patients’ disease at diagnosis and during treatment, and will greatly assist in focusing research on treatment response.

Many of the PET-CTs will be done within clinical trials, which will allow offsetting of costs so the tests will be more affordable to pet owners. The ACC has appointments with about 100 newly diagnosed cancer patients with naturally occurring spontaneous cancers every month. It is also the lead center in the Comparative Canine Oncology and Genomics Consortium, a veterinary cancer tissue bank.

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