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PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible?
BACKGROUND: It is challenging to obtain a similar access to positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) within the whole region served. In the subarctic and arctic region of Norway, significant distances, weather conditions and seasonable darkness have been challenging when the health...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4551695/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26316132 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12880-015-0073-0 |
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author | Norum, Jan Søndergaard, Ursula Traasdahl, Erik Nieder, Carsten Tollåli, Geir Andersen, Gry Sundset, Rune |
author_facet | Norum, Jan Søndergaard, Ursula Traasdahl, Erik Nieder, Carsten Tollåli, Geir Andersen, Gry Sundset, Rune |
author_sort | Norum, Jan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: It is challenging to obtain a similar access to positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) within the whole region served. In the subarctic and arctic region of Norway, significant distances, weather conditions and seasonable darkness have been challenging when the health care provider has aimed for a high quality PET-CT service with similar availability to all inhabitants. METHODS: The PET-CT service at the University Hospital of North Norway (UNN) was established in May 2010. The glucose analogue tracer fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) was delivered from Helsinki, Finland. An ambulatory PET-CT scanner was initially employed and a permanent local one was introduced in October 2011. In March 2014, we analysed retrospectively all data on the PET-CT exams performed at the Section of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology during a 32 months time period 2010–13. The following patient data were recorded: gender, age, diagnosis, residence and distance of travelling. There were in total 796 exams in 706 patients. RESULTS: Four hundred sixty-one PET-CT exams per million inhabitants were, on average, performed per year. Lung cancer (32.7 %), malignant melanoma (11.3 %), colorectal cancer (10.9 %) and lymphoma (9.7 %) constituted two-thirds of all exams. Three-fourths were males and the median age was 63.5 years (range 15.2–91.4 years). The access to PET-CT exam varied within the region. The southern county (Nordland) experienced a significantly less access (p < 0.0001) to the regional service. Except for malignant melanoma, this finding was observed in all major cancer subgroups. In colorectal cancer and lymphoma a lower consumption of PET-CT was also observed in the northeastern county (Finnmark). Patients’ mean distance of travelling by car (one way) was 373 km (median 313 km, range 5–936 km). CONCLUSION: PET-CT was not similarly available within the region. Especially, inhabitants in the southern county experienced less access to the regional service. National and regional standards of care, new scanners and improved collaboration between hospital trusts may alter this situation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4551695 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-45516952015-08-29 PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? Norum, Jan Søndergaard, Ursula Traasdahl, Erik Nieder, Carsten Tollåli, Geir Andersen, Gry Sundset, Rune BMC Med Imaging Research Article BACKGROUND: It is challenging to obtain a similar access to positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) within the whole region served. In the subarctic and arctic region of Norway, significant distances, weather conditions and seasonable darkness have been challenging when the health care provider has aimed for a high quality PET-CT service with similar availability to all inhabitants. METHODS: The PET-CT service at the University Hospital of North Norway (UNN) was established in May 2010. The glucose analogue tracer fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) was delivered from Helsinki, Finland. An ambulatory PET-CT scanner was initially employed and a permanent local one was introduced in October 2011. In March 2014, we analysed retrospectively all data on the PET-CT exams performed at the Section of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology during a 32 months time period 2010–13. The following patient data were recorded: gender, age, diagnosis, residence and distance of travelling. There were in total 796 exams in 706 patients. RESULTS: Four hundred sixty-one PET-CT exams per million inhabitants were, on average, performed per year. Lung cancer (32.7 %), malignant melanoma (11.3 %), colorectal cancer (10.9 %) and lymphoma (9.7 %) constituted two-thirds of all exams. Three-fourths were males and the median age was 63.5 years (range 15.2–91.4 years). The access to PET-CT exam varied within the region. The southern county (Nordland) experienced a significantly less access (p < 0.0001) to the regional service. Except for malignant melanoma, this finding was observed in all major cancer subgroups. In colorectal cancer and lymphoma a lower consumption of PET-CT was also observed in the northeastern county (Finnmark). Patients’ mean distance of travelling by car (one way) was 373 km (median 313 km, range 5–936 km). CONCLUSION: PET-CT was not similarly available within the region. Especially, inhabitants in the southern county experienced less access to the regional service. National and regional standards of care, new scanners and improved collaboration between hospital trusts may alter this situation. BioMed Central 2015-08-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4551695/ /pubmed/26316132 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12880-015-0073-0 Text en © Norum et al. 2015 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Norum, Jan Søndergaard, Ursula Traasdahl, Erik Nieder, Carsten Tollåli, Geir Andersen, Gry Sundset, Rune PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? |
title | PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? |
title_full | PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? |
title_fullStr | PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? |
title_full_unstemmed | PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? |
title_short | PET-CT in the sub-arctic region of Norway 2010–2013. At the edge of what is possible? |
title_sort | pet-ct in the sub-arctic region of norway 2010–2013. at the edge of what is possible? |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4551695/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26316132 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12880-015-0073-0 |
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