Austin Health Orientated History:
-
The department at Austin Health was created in April 1995 after the amalgamation of the previously independent Austin and Heidelberg Repatriation Hospitals. Nuclear Medicine at Austin Hospital opened for scanning in January 1977 under the founding Director, Dr W John McKay. In 1982, it moved to its present location and in 1992 the PET Centre was commissioned. The department at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital opened in 1972 under the directorship of Dr L Barry Arkles. In 1981, it moved to its present location. Due to ongoing changes within the Medical Centre in regards to rationalisation of patient workloads, services and medical and surgical units, the Department has made the decision to provide the bulk of its service from Austin Campus.
-
In 1999, a major refurbishment to buildings and equipment was undertaken which now maintains the Department at Austin Health as the largest in Australia and one of the most modern. In February 2000, Dr Christopher Rowe was appointed Director, Department of Nuclear Medicine and Centre for PET. Dr Rowe returned to Austin Health after being a Senior Registrar in the mid to late 1980's within which time he co-developed the use of the brain pharmaceutical Ceretec* in post and inter-ictal epilepsy.
Nuclear Medicine General History:
-
Although the naturally occurring radioisotopes of radon and radium were used in the first quarter of last century, Nuclear Medicine came under prominence during the 1930's and subsequent years with the development of the Cyclotron and Fission Reactor. Artificially produced radioisotopes were immediately used for therapeutic and laboratory procedures. Radiation monitoring equipment were developed which allowed the distribution of the radioisotope to be determined, either in-vivo or in-vitro. These devices output the results as a count-rate over the organ or sample. With improvements in technology that occurred over this time, these devices became more sophisticated and automated systems of scanning were developed - the Rectilinear Scanner.
-
The output of Rectilinear Scanners was usually recorded on white paper with a series of black marks being printed by a mechanical printer - similar to the conventional dot matrix printer. An alternative was the use of a colour ribbon or light sensitive film. In all cases, the intensity of exposure or depth of colour, corresponded to the concentration of radioisotope in the incident area.
-
In the 1950's, the first gamma camera was produced and which did not rely on continuous motion. This became the predecessor of the present day gamma cameras where the input is stored on the hard disk of a computer and the output can be manipulated and recorded on a variety of media. Single and multi-headed cameras are now common-place in most Nuclear Medicine Departments. The improvements in gamma camera design allowed dynamic - count versus time - studies to be performed as well as static or planar imaging of present day. Tomographic hardware and software , being able to view sections of an organ or allow three-dimensional imagery, have also improved the sensitivity and specificity of Nuclear Medicine techniques far beyond the dreams of the early pioneers.
© Copyright approval pending
|
