There is no alternative to precision medicine to fight the exponential increase in chronic disease and conditions, such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and to improve cancer survivorship rates.
RETIMAGER will contribute to the earlier and more precise diagnosis, with smaller radiation doses to the patients through increased detectability and quantitative accuracy.
Over the last decades, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) has been firmly established as the predominant molecular imaging technique due to its unmatched sensitivity and capability to address many different metabolic processes. However, there is huge room for improvement, as current clinical PET scanners are limited to spatial resolutions higher than 2.5 mm and temporal resolutions longer than 5 seconds. This hampers applications of PET for preclinical research and clinical diagnosis in small tissues or lesions and precludes real-time reconstruction of metabolic images. RETIMAGER is a proposal for a molecular imaging system with a ten-fold spatial and temporal improvement on the reconstructed image with respect to current PET devices. This will not only boost the quantitative performance, but it will enable new applications in cardiology, vascular oncology, oncology, neurology, and other areas.
0.25 mm
High expected spatial resolution
20%
High expected detecion sensitivity
300 ps
Excellent Time Of Flight resolution
0.01 s
Very good arterial phase resolution due to very short time frames
Overall approach
A clear goal with a clear strategy
We will achieve our goal by developing smart radiation detectors with non-conventional geometries that combine the advantages of both pixelated and monolithic detectors, the two dominant and seemingly incompatible technologies employed in PET scanners. Our new scanner will provide 0.25 mm pixel resolvability with time frames as short as 0.01 sec. By aggregating these blocks in a unique gantry self-adapting to the geometry of the field-of-view, RETIMAGER will achieve an unprecedented increase in sensitivity and in in vivo real-time imaging with submillimeter resolution. We will pair it with high-throughput data processing and AI tools to assess with a single tracer both perfusion and metabolism in preclinical and clinical models. In the long run, RETIMAGER’s faster, lower dose, and less invasive molecular imaging technology will become a game-changer for understanding disease processes by unveiling new accurate image-based quantitative biomarkers, taking scientific and healthcare stakeholders a step closer to personalized precision medicine.
Social and economical impact
Facts
Project implementation is organised around seven different work packages.
During the 42 months of the project, we will combine technical advances with preclinical and clinical evaluations to become the RETIMAGER PoC. The project comprises five technical Work Packages and two additional ones dedicated to Dissemination & Communication and to proper Project Management.
Progress per Work Package
Meet our multi-disciplinary consortium, highly experienced in different fields
A great group of teams to achieve great results
Our continuous development to make things happen.
