Name: Melbourne hospital unveils $24 million scanner in cancer fight
Uploaded: 2025-11-16T07:07:29.738Z
Duration: 1 min 41 s
Description: The nation’s fight against cancer has been given a boost with a state-of-the-art scanning machine at a Melbourne hospital. The $24 million investment is said to be safer and faster for patients, cutting scan times to just minutes.

The nation’s fight against cancer has been given a boost with a state-of-the-art scanning machine at a Melbourne hospital. The $24 million investment is said to be safer and faster for patients, cutting scan times to just minutes.

Melbourne

The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne is set to introduce the Quadra PET scanner, a new technology capable of scanning the entire body in minutes and detecting very small cancers. This advancement is expected to make scans faster, more comfortable, and less stressful for patients, while also enabling near real-time monitoring and the use of artificial intelligence to reduce diagnostic variation among doctors.

The Quadra scanner will be the second of its kind in an Australian public hospital, following Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital. In addition to cancer detection, the scanner will assist in diagnosing and treating conditions such as dementia, epilepsy, and brain injuries, with the aim of reducing waiting lists and improving survival rates.

Melbourne hospital unveils $24 million scanner in cancer fight

A new generation of PET scanners giving cancer fewer places to hide. The resolution for this Quadra PET scanner is so good that we can actually detect very very tiny cancers. The Quadra can scan the whole body at once, not just different parts, cutting the time it takes from up to an hour to just minutes. Anything that's going to help reduce it, make it more bearable is a very good thing. Tom Panos counts around 30 PET scans he's had across four bouts of cancer treatment. He's healthy now, but will still need them regularly. It's going to be a lot more comfortable and not as stressful for people that are trying to work out has a cancer come back or not. PET scans use a radioactive tracer to detect cancer. Advances in technology now allow doctors to treat the disease with the same injection. The Quadra scanner will let doctors see how patients react in near real time. It'll also help harness AI. Potentially there's human variation when you go and see different doctors. I think the AI will reduce that variation. This Quadra at the Alfred in Melbourne will start scanning early next year. It's only the second public hospital in Australia to get one, along with Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital. It isn't just cancer patients who will benefit from this new scanner. It'll also be used to help those suffering from dementia, epilepsy and brain injuries, making diagnosis and treatment far easier. You can imagine that a patient with dementia may actually forget that they're in the scanner and having a fast scan allows us to get the scan before the patient starts moving around. Faster scans, cutting waiting lists and boosting survival rates. Rory Campbell, 10 News.

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