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Inselspital’s mission of being a positive agent of change continues to flourish, and this latest addition prepares them for years to come.��

Photography and data courtesy of Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland

PET/CT imaging is having a tailwind. To meet the growing need and enhance both clinical diagnostics and research agendas, nuclear medicine facilities must equip themselves with advanced scanners. At Inselspital, Bern University Hospital in Bern, Switzerland, the acquisition of their first Biograph Vision Quadra PET/CT significantly expanded their capabilities. Now, with the addition of a second Biograph Vision Quadra, Inselspital’s mission of being a positive agent of change continues to flourish.

The University Clinic for Nuclear Medicine at Inselspital is not short of demand for nuclear diagnostics. “We are currently performing about 7,500 PET/CT scans per year, and this number is increasing by more than 10 percent annually,” remarks Axel Rominger, MD, PhD, the department’s director. He anticipates that the clinic will soon reach 10,000 examinations annually. However, expanding capacity poses challenges. “We have only two PET/CT rooms—this is our bottleneck. We cannot easily expand to three or four rooms, so we have to go for high-throughput scanners instead.”

The first major step to address this challenge was taken in October 2020 when Rominger and his team acquired a Biograph Vision Quadra PET/CT for one of their rooms. The acquisition of a second Biograph Vision Quadra in November 2024, which replaced a traditional PET/CT scanner in the other room, has positioned the clinic well for the future. “With this setup, we are well prepared for years to come. In the longer run, we should be able to increase our capacity towards 12,000 to 15,000 scans per year, dependent on the research activities,” Rominger states.

The hospital has also expanded its team to accommodate the increased patient and research activities. The staff now includes 17 technologists,17 physicians, and about 25 dedicated research personnel, among others. This interdisciplinary approach has ensured that the hospital can provide high-quality care and conduct cutting-edge research simultaneously.

As an academic center, the University Clinic for Nuclear Medicine at Inselspital is at the forefront of advancing PET/CT imaging through extensive research and identifying new patient groups. Approximately 25 out of its 80 employees are dedicated researchers, and about one in four PET/CT scans at the clinic is research-related and not routine clinical care.

Kuangyu Shi, PhD, a leading nuclear medicine scientist in Switzerland, oversees many of these research projects. For him, the acquisition of the first Biograph Vision Quadra was transformative. “The scanner has increased our research capacities quite substantially. We have been able to add a number of exciting new fields and generate a long list of publications,” Shi explains.

Research areas enabled by this total-body PET/CT includes long-axial field of view (LAFOV) scanning, which offers better temporal resolution than conventional short-axial PET/CT scanning. LAFOV makes dynamic imaging possible, aiding in establishing the kinetics of new tracers. According to Shi, it also facilitates theranostics research and investigations into deep physiology, particularly the interrelations between different organs.

Other important research domains at Inselspital include ultra-high sensitivity imaging and ultra-low dose¹ PET imaging, particularly in screening and therapeutic monitoring. Dual radioisotope imaging is another emerging field that Shi believes will gain importance, also enabled by the ultra-high sensitivity and ultra-low radiation¹ doses that are possible with Biograph Vision Quadra.

At Inselspital, the addition of its second Biograph Vision Quadra has revolutionized the department’s workflow and overall service quality. “Having a duplicate system is an ideal setting,” says Angelo Felgosa Cardoso, a technologist. “It doesn’t matter at all on which scanner a patient is scanned, the SOPs (standard operating procedures) will be the same. We can offer low-dose¹ imaging, dynamic examinations, and extra-quick protocols in both rooms. This makes all workflows dramatically easier.” This has led to a more efficient use of resources and improved coordination among the hospital staff.��

Marco Viscione, a co-chief technologist, highlights the scheduling benefits. “Since both scanners are identical, there is no longer any need to schedule patients on a particular scanner. We know in advance that we will have the optimal setup for every patient. We gain the greatest possible flexibility.” Not even research patients are scheduled on a particular scanner. There are several dedicated research slots, for example, in the afternoon. During these slots, Shi and his research colleagues use one of the two scanners, while routine patients are being examined on the other one. Neither clinicians nor researchers have to compromise on quality. “There is much less fighting for slots now,” says Rominger.��

Patients benefit significantly from having these two identical total-body PET/CT scanners. Angela Mendes, the other co-chief technologist, notes, “We can reduce the radiation dose that we inject by about 50% in every single patient.¹ We also reduce the scanning time by more than 50% and can offer claustrophobia protocols lasting only a minute. And by doing so, we improve the quality of the service that we give our patients, but we also reduce the radiation dose that we are exposed to as technologists.”

Philipp Grätzel is a medical doctor by training, who has been working as a healthcare and technology journalist in Berlin, Germany, for many years.