The community of Madrid consolidates its leadership in Spain in health technological equipment

Health Minister visited the Princess, who has incorporated a gamma camera with high precision Diagnostics TAC

-Madrid public health boasts the largest and most modern technological endowment diagnostic and health care

Рin the last 7 a̱They have invested it more than 170 million for modernisation and expansion of equipment 2

Madrid, 2011-August Madrid public health boasts the largest and most modern technological equipment health of Spain, both in the diagnostic field and in the care. So show it the last data of the Ministry of health, Social Affairs and equal in their statistics of health establishments with boarding regime.

Thus, Health Minister Javier Fernández-Lasquetty stressed that the community of Madrid has consolidated its leadership in Spain in technological equipment health, having visited this morning the service of medicine Nuclear of the Hospital of the Princess, where newly installed a gamma camera with TAC.

This position of leadership in technological strength diagnostic and health care is the result of the efforts made in the last 7 years in the Madrid public health, which have invested more than EUR 170 million in modernization and expansion of the technological parquet.

The new gamma camera with TAC installed in the Hospital de La Princesa is a latest generation which is an important step forward in the field of diagnostic imaging. Thanks to the combination of Spect-CT technology, it allows to obtain simultaneously the anatomy of the organ studied, as well as the function that performs and possible anomalies.

Patients who must undergo scans get through an injection and information of possible dysfunctions is obtained via intravenous radiopharmaceuticals (radioactive isotopes), which are gathered by the different tissues of the body selectively and whose observation through this technique. Contrary to what might seem, this study has no side effects or serious adverse reactions, because the administered quantities of isotopes are minimal and received radiation are in the majority of similar cases or less than the of any conventional radiological test.

Studying all bodies

The gamma camera can perform studies on practically all the organs of the body, but some of the most significant for its diagnostic importance in which the Hospital de La Princesa highlights are those of the parathyroid glands, that identifies the image and exact location of the specific gland that produces an alteration in the metabolization of calcium. It therefore facilitates incision surgery is minimal and reduce possible complications of it.

One of the utilities of this team, and that brings added value to be national benchmarks for the surgical treatment of refractory epilepsy, this hospital is cerebral perfusion. This type of scan is done to the patient, in a controlled way, causing a seizure, and locating, at that time and so accurate, the focus of start of it, which becomes very valuable for neurosurgeons information go to speak to the patient. Tumour pathologies such as cancers of the breast or melanoma, the gamma camera is able to identify the node where cancer cells that may invade the rest of the body (the Sentinel lymph node technique), which in turn facilitates therapeutic actions impeding the progress of the disease are located.

Investment of 426.000 euros of Madrid in this gamma camera with TAC increases the potential diagnostic service medicine Nuclear of the Hospital of the Princess, that performs every year some 3,200 gammagrafias of very high precision. This modern technology available to patients who need it, provides speed in diagnosis, minimizing complications and maximum information for possible surgeries. With is are already 36 Gammacámaras in the Madrid public health after the incorporation of 14 units in the last 7 years with an investment of more than five million euros.

Research of the highest relevance

Experience in realization of scans of the service of Nuclear Medicine, which became operational in 1992, has made its specialists have been published, together with other services of the Centre they work in a multidisciplinary way – cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, general surgery, medical and radiotherapeutic Oncology, among others-, research of the highest relevance in both national and international journals.