Nuclear Medicine

The Nuclear Medicine Department was established in September 1984 as the Isotope Department and renamed in May 1994. In early 2004 radioimmunoassay was transferred to the laboratory and the remaining staff were placed under radiology; only SPECTA examinations remained and the unit was renamed the ECT room. Reestablishment began in 2014, when the department moved to basement level 1 of Building 1. At the end of 2018 it had 14 staff: six physicians, six nurses and two technicians. Equipment included one Siemens PET/CT and one GE SPECT/CT. The department was among the first in the province to offer combined PET/CT myocardial metabolic and perfusion imaging. It opened a radionuclide therapy clinic, radionuclide ward and peripheral intervention clinic.

From 2010 to 2014 its principal services were SPECT examinations, iodine-131 treatment for hyperthyroidism and postoperative differentiated thyroid cancer, strontium-89 for bone metastases from malignant tumors, and interstitial radioactive seed treatment for tumors. Seed implantation was later taken over gradually by thoracic surgery and bone oncology and stopped in this department.

In 2014, most staff left for training while nuclear medicine was being reestablished. The old SPECT device was retired, and ECT examinations were arranged at the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region and Liaoning Cancer Hospital, coordinated by staff who remained. Department director Xie Feng stayed to prepare the department and perform peripheral interventions. In 2015 a Siemens digital subtraction angiography (DSA) system was installed and a multipurpose operating room opened for peripheral and hybrid interventions, mainly serving interventional oncology, neurosurgery and vascular surgery.

In 2016 the operating room joined the surgical department and was no longer supervised by nuclear medicine. Renovation of the nuclear medicine premises was completed and a Siemens PET/CT was installed and used for whole-body or regional metabolic and myocardial perfusion/metabolic imaging. Xie Feng continued peripheral interventions and strontium-89 was occasionally used for bone metastases. The hospital chronicle also states that at the end of September 2018 PET/CT passed environmental impact and radiation-control assessments and was put into use for functional imaging of the thyroid, salivary and parathyroid glands, kidneys, myocardium and whole-body bones. The radionuclide ward passed assessment that year and could admit patients for iodine-131 treatment after differentiated thyroid cancer surgery. The department introduced PET/CT myocardial metabolic and perfusion imaging in 2016. Source: hospital chronicle, 2010–2019 edition.