New state-of-the-art equipment at the Oncopole de Toulouse for the diagnosis and treatment of cancers

the essential
The Toulouse IUCT-Oncopole was the first site in the world to be equipped with the Omni Legend ™ machine from GE Healthcare. This latest-generation, 100% digital PET-Scanner promises to be revolutionary in cancer treatment.

Faster and more accurate. GE Healthcare’s new Omni Legend ™ platform, installed at the IUCT-Oncopole and officially presented on January 26, constitutes a further advance in the oncology care pathway. The Toulouse site was the first in the world to use it, first as part of a clinical trial from February 2022, then, since October 2022, routinely with its patients for the detection and follow-up of cancerous tumours.

The PET-Scan is a medical imaging examination which aims to precisely visualize the organs and identify cancerous cells following the injection of a molecule similar to glucose which acts as a tracer. The Omni Legend ™ machine is a latest-generation, 100% digital PET-Scanner, which offers a sensitivity 2.5 times greater than that of current digital scanners, which makes it possible to detect very small lesions, down to a millimeter. This precision is not only useful for oncology, disciplines such as neurology and cardiology will be able to use it for diagnosis. Image acquisition time is also much faster which means less radiation exposure, less time spent on the machine and therefore less anxiety for patients.

At the IUCT-Oncopole, in front of the Omni Legend PET-Scanner: Quentin Maronnier, medical intern, Frédéric Courbon, head of the medical imaging department and Olivier Caselles, head of medical physics.
DDM – FREDERIC CHARMEUX

A 4-minute exam instead of 20 minutes

“This is a real technological breakthrough, for our patients and our teams. When I started my career, a PET-Scan required 30 minutes, then we went to 20 minutes regarding fifteen years ago. With the Omni Legend ™ we are averaging 4 minutes and 10 minutes for the whole body This tool is worth 30 PET-Scanners from the 2000s This project started out ticking no boxes but we got there and it will be able to serve all patients in the region. This new PET-Scan will allow us to better manage cancer treatments with a personalized approach”, underlines Professor Frédéric Courbon, head of the imaging department of the IUCT-Oncopole where 9,000 PET scans are performed each year. “We are on the way to a change of scale. A cancerous lesion of several millimeters already contains several billion cells, so being able to go from billion to million means improving our ability to fight once morest this lesion”, summarizes Professor Jean-Pierre Delord, Director General of the Claudius-Regaud Institute at the IUCT-Oncopole.

“An ongoing study to avoid overdiagnosis”

A clinical trial conducted with 45 patients who volunteered to undergo two PET-Scans (on the classic machine and on the Omni Legend ™) made it possible to compare the quality of the images. “We observed a superiority of more than 75% with the new platform”, explains Professor Frédéric Courbon. “The second part is in progress: we insert virtual lesions in the images to see how the artificial intelligence reacts in the data processing. We want at all costs to avoid overdiagnosis

The Haute-Garonne currently has 4 PET-Scan machines: one at the Toulouse University Hospital (Pierre-Paul Riquet hospital in Purpan), one at the Pasteur clinic and now two at the IUCT-Oncopole. The Toulouse University Hospital and the Pasteur Clinic have made a request to the Regional Health Agency (ARS Occitanie) to each equip themselves with an additional machine. GE Healthcare is in discussion for six Omni Legend™ installation projects in the Deep South. After Israel, Switzerland and Poland, other installations are underway in Europe and 65 orders have been placed in the United States.