A portable medical imaging camera could help bring nuclear medicine procedures closer to patients after a clinical study involving 150 people found it produced images comparable to conventional equipment.
The Seracam device, developed by British medtech company Serac Imaging Systems, was evaluated by researchers at Universiti Malaya Medical Centre in Malaysia during routine nuclear medicine procedures.
The findings, presented at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Annual Congress in Vienna, suggest the technology could offer a more flexible alternative to conventional imaging systems, particularly in confined clinical environments.
Dr Aik Hao Ng, clinical medical physicist and senior lecturer at Universiti Malaya, said: “Using Seracam with 150 patients across a wide range of routine procedures and different radionuclides has given our clinical team extensive and valuable hands-on experience.
“Seeing radiotracer uptake in real time, fused with the patient’s anatomy at the point of imaging, has given us a clearer understanding of how hybrid imaging can be incorporated into clinical practice.
“We look forward to building on this experience in further studies, including in a surgical setting.”
In the study, researchers used the camera alongside standard imaging equipment during procedures involving three radioactive substances: technetium-99m, iodine-131 and yttrium-90.
Applications included thyroid and parathyroid imaging, identifying sentinel lymph nodes and procedures involving yttrium-90 microsphere therapy.
The researchers reported good agreement between images captured using Seracam and those produced by conventional gamma cameras.
They also found that the device could be incorporated into routine clinical workflows without disruption, while its integrated lighting and real-time image overlay helped clinicians position the camera and identify areas of radiotracer uptake.
Operators required relatively little training to use the equipment, according to the findings.
The researchers concluded that the camera could complement existing nuclear medicine equipment, with potential applications in bedside imaging, surgical procedures and image-guided interventions.
Further studies are planned to assess the camera’s quantitative performance, its clinical impact and how it could be incorporated into surgical procedures.
Mark Rosser, chief executive of Serac Imaging Systems, said: “This is the largest clinical study of Seracam to date, and we are grateful to Dr Ng and the team at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre for their dedication in completing it.
“We are highly encouraged that Seracam fitted easily into everyday clinical workflows, with images in good agreement with standard-of-care imaging.
“We believe Seracam has the potential to make molecular imaging more accessible at the point of care, with potential benefits for both clinical teams and patients.”
