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DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1769956
Designing a PET/CT Facility Integrated within the General Nuclear Medicine Department at Groote Schuur Hospital
Gerschwin.Malan@westerncape.gov.za
Introduction: Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH) was one of the only state hospitals in South Africa that did not have a PET/CT facility onsite that is required to support clinical work which includes planning for theragnostic applications.
The aims of this project were to implement a PET/CT facility within the general NM department at GSH.
Methods: Reference to the IAEA document was used to assist in the planning of the operational requirements as we as a department only had 8 months for implementation versus a much longer period.
• A commissioning team was formed (August 2021) that included internal, external, and ancillary stakeholders.
• Initial specifications meeting was held to ascertain the minimum requirements of the PET/CT camera and radiopharmaceutical laboratory.
• Infrastructure within the department required repurposing to accommodate the new camera and facility.
• Meetings were planned meticulously with key stakeholders on a weekly basis to make sure target end points were met.
We used the target date of March 31, 2022, internally for completion of the entire project.
We also used the target date recommended by the IAEA of 64 months to ascertain if we would be within target against international recommendations.
Results: The entire project took 19 months to complete in comparison to suggested internal target date.
In March 2022, 80% of the overall project was complete.
On March 10, 2023, 100% was complete.
Key challenges identified during the project:
• Defining clinical needs of the department and hospital for the next 10 years that would be used by PET/CT (e.g., pediatrics and radiotherapy planning).
• COVID-19 pandemic as well as conflict in Europe which impacted severely on delivery of necessary equipment.
Conclusion: The whole design of the PET/CT facility was executed within a reasonable time frame according to international standards. We hope the utilization of the facility will have great value for the patients of GSH.
Publication History
Article published online:
25 May 2023
© 2023. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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