The Macau Union Hospital announced in a statement on Thursday that a nuclear medicine* examination service has recently commenced operation, and in its initial phase the services will cater to residents referred by the Health Bureau (SSM).
The Macau Union Hospital in Cotai is officially known as Islands Healthcare Complex – Macau Medical Centre of Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH). It is operated by PUMCH in collaboration with the local government thanks to the central government’s support.
The statement noted that the hospital is equipped with multiple high-end nuclear medicine imaging devices, which now boasts the largest and most advanced nuclear medicine facility in Macau, including two Positron Emission Tomography–Computed Tomography (PET-CT) scanners, one Positron Emission Tomography-Magnetic Resonance (PET-MR) scanner, and one Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography-Computed Tomography (SPECT-CT) system, adding that in the initial phase two PET-CT devices will be put into operation first.
Tomography is a type of medical imaging that creates a detailed image of a single slice, or cross-section, of the body.
As one of the key technologies in modern medical imaging, PET-CT combines the advantages of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Computed Tomography (CT), allowing clinicians to obtain both metabolic functional information and precise anatomical structures of lesions in a single examination, which significantly enhances the accuracy and efficiency of diagnosing tumour-related diseases, the statement said.
The statement added that the newly operational PET-CT equipment provides prominent advantages such as precise early diagnosis, non-invasiveness, and high efficiency, with leveraging the extensive experience and talent resources of the hospital’s Nuclear Medicine Department, the centre is capable of performing imaging diagnoses for various complex diseases, it will provide residents with more efficient, accurate, and safe medical imaging services while alleviating the demand for high-end imaging examinations in public healthcare.
* Nuclear medicine is a medical specialty that uses small amounts of radioactive materials, called radiopharmaceuticals, to diagnose, treat, and manage diseases. It focuses on showing how organs and tissues are functioning at a molecular level, rather than just showing their structure. – DeepSeek
This undated handout photo provided by the Macau Union Hospital on Thursday shows a Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography (PET-CT) scanner in operation.
