Molecular Imaging Centre opens in Harley Street

The UK’s first private fully comprehensive molecular imaging centre has opened in Harley Street, the centre of London’s renowned medical district.

The Harley Street Clinic, the hub of the largest cancer care network outside the NHS, has opened the new centre at 154 Harley Street to provide specialist diagnostics and imaging for cancer, cardiac and other areas of medicine.  The Harley Street Clinic is part of the HCA International group of six leading independent hospitals in London.

Molecular Imaging (or Nuclear Medicine and PET/CT) is the medical specialisation that uses very small amounts of radioactive materials for diagnosis and therapy. Uniquely it provides doctors with information about both the function and structure of virtually every part of the body.

Much of the information that the technology obtains cannot be obtained by other diagnostic methods and by enabling doctors to see anatomy as well as physiology, it enables more accurate evaluation of a particular disease.

The new centre is equipped with two state of the art Phillips BrightView nuclear medicine gamma cameras – one with SPECT/CT capability, which provides true 3D imaging and improves diagnostic sensitivity. The SPECT/CT machine is the first of its kind to be installed in the UK.  SPECT/CT enables the investigation – both physiological and anatomical – in greater detail than was possible previously, of all areas of the body.  The technology is frequently used for investigating the functions of organs including the heart, the kidneys, liver, lungs, the skeleton and thyroid.

The unit also has a GE Discovery 64 slice PET/CT which is used for cancer diagnosis, mapping tumours before and after treatment, as well as examining abnormalities in the brain.