The Obninsk Bulletin; 02.08.2018; the Cancer cell under the gun

Author: Strong Margarita

One of the most modern cancer diagnostics methods is available to patients in Obninsk absolutely free of charge.

For more than 10 years now, the city program "Obninsk is a Healthy City" has been implemented in Obninsk, an important part of the implementation of which is the release of the TV program of the same name. Its authors decided to devote another half-hour broadcast to the topic of new technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of oncological diseases.

One of the participants in the TV project is the Obninsk oncologist Konstantin Pakhomenko, who heads the consultative polyclinic department of the V.I. A.F. Tsyba National Medical Research Center of the Ministry of Health of Russia. For material for the release of the program "Obninsk Healthy City", he went to Moscow, where he met with colleagues from the oldest private clinic JSC "MEDICINA". It is here that one of the world's most modern diagnostic methods - PET / CT - is used. The medical center now has two scanners under this almost codename.

PET / CT is computed tomography combined with positron emission tomography. Radioactive drugs are involved in this diagnostic process, and it is this combination that makes it possible to visualize the processes occurring at the molecular level.

Preparing for the examination is no less important than the process itself. After the injection of the marker drug, you cannot move, talk or even turn on the light. After the fluorine-18 labeled glucose is distributed throughout the body, the fun begins. The fact is that a diseased cell absorbs several times more glucose than a healthy one. Consequently, the marker drug accumulates precisely in the unhealthy areas. The dynamics are recorded by instruments, and due to fluorine-18, suspiciously voracious cells literally glow in the pictures. Combining them with the result of traditional topography, the doctor receives a detailed map of the patient's body, where the accumulation of the drug in the tissues is a cancer focus.

- What is a diseased cell? This is any inflammatory process, and an oncological altered cell, for the chaotic reproduction of which a large amount of glucose is required. 99 percent of the people we work with are cancer patients, ”says Oksana Platonova, chief physician of the MEDICINE CLINIC's diagnostic department, Candidate of Medical Sciences.

Modern oncologists and chemotherapists have already evaluated the effectiveness of this type of diagnosis, because it is he who can confirm the effectiveness of treatment.

If the cancer is defeated, but alarming symptoms have appeared, then appeal to PET CT can determine the incipient metastasis. In the same way, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease are diagnosed. However, PET is not the only correct method for diagnosing diseases. In addition, for such serious studies, not only the patient's fears are needed, but also the doctor's reasonable suspicions expressed in the diagnosis.

- It is not so important to shoot a picture, it is important to decipher it. PET scans a luminous focus with increased metabolism. That is, when we see the outbreak, we still have to name it, and PET will not help us in this. It is quite possible that after some time this technique will leave the stage of treatment control into the diagnostic stage. But not today, - explained the chief physician of the second clinical department of the MEDICINE CLINIC, candidate of medical sciences Zhanna Dorosh.

More than fifty people pass through PET / CT scanners in the Moscow center per day. Some of them are patients of the Obninsk MRRC, who are sent here within the framework of compulsory medical insurance.

- Residents of Obninsk, having a referral from an oncologist and a compulsory medical insurance policy, come to us, register, and we perform these studies absolutely free of charge for the patient. When it comes to the correctness of the treatment, then this procedure must certainly go through, - says Oksana Platonova.

During the year, about 200 patients of the Obninsk Medical Radiological Center underwent free examination using PET CT in the Moscow clinic of MEDICINA OJSC.

- Quite expectedly, private medicine meets the population halfway and is moving from collecting funds for medical services to working with the compulsory medical insurance fund and insurance companies. This allows a wider circle of people to receive free and high-quality medical care. At the same time, medical clinics are more intensively loading equipment and developing modern methods of treatment and diagnostics. This allows us to hope that there will be other, more advanced methods of research and treatment, in particular, oncological diseases, - explained Konstantin Pakhomenko in an interview with our publication.