Fernando Camacho Servin
Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, August 28, 2022, p. eleven
This year, the so-called PET/Ciclotrón Unit – a tomograph that is used to offer diagnoses of various diseases with high precision and without invasive methods – completed 20 years of uninterrupted work at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), during which treated more than 60 thousand patients.
This was indicated by the specialists responsible for the operation of said device, who highlighted that the PET/Cyclotron is a unique tool of its kind in Latin America, whose main users are low-income patients who could not afford this service in private hospitals.
At a press conference, Rosa María Wong Chew, head of the clinical research subdivision of the UNAM School of Medicine, stressed that in the two decades of operation of this team, more than 61,000 people have been treated and there have been more than 250 thousand doses of radiopharmaceuticals for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies.
This study consists of a medical diagnostic technique through which functional images are obtained from the spatio-temporal distribution of radiopharmaceuticals directed at specific molecular targets, he explained.
Non-invasive study method
What is evaluated, said those in charge of its operation, is the biochemistry of the human body at the molecular level, up to what is known as molecular nuclear medicine, which is a non-invasive study method.
For his part, Miguel Ángel Ávila Rodríguez, head of the Cyclotron Radiopharmacy Unit, explained that the technicians in charge of said tool work with radioactive atoms and manage a particle accelerator and a radiopharmacy laboratory.
Meanwhile, Miguel Ángel Olarte, head of the PET/Ciclotrón Unit, stressed that this medical equipment can not only be used for the identification and monitoring of tumor cells, but is also applicable in specialties such as infectology, neurology and cardiology, as well as in teaching and research work.
The experts recalled that the PET/Ciclotrón Unit is open to the general public, through the agreements that UNAM has signed with 25 public and private institutions, and works from Monday to Saturday, on the ground floor of the research tower of the Faculty of Medicine.
