Since the donation of a SPECT camera by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a busy hospital in Brazil's city of Niteroi has doubled its capacity to perform heart scans, expanding access to life-saving health services to over two million underserved people in the municipality and its vicinity.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. In Brazil, cardiac disease, including heart attacks, are a major reason for the loss of life. Preventive actions include lifestyle changes, but specialized tests, including nuclear medicine procedures, play a key role in early detection and have contributed significantly to decreased mortality associated with heart failure.
Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is a nuclear medicine technique that uses gamma rays to provide 3D information about the inside of the body and examine organ function. "In cardiology, SPECT tomography is standard to diagnose coronary artery disease and wall abnormalities," said Enrique Estrada Lobato, a nuclear medicine physician in the IAEA Division of Human Health. This includes myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) - a 'stress test' that examines blood flow through the heart muscle.
During his visit to Brazil in June 2024, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi formally inaugurated the new SPECT system at HUAP's nuclear medicine department. (Photo: UFF)
The Hospital Universitário Antônio Pedro (HUAP) is the only public hospital in Niteroi - a municipality in the state of Rio de Janeiro - with a nuclear medicine department. Until recently, HUAP had a 12-year-old single-headed gamma camera, which was slow to provide images during examinations, leading to long waiting times and slow patient turnaround.
The nuclear medicine department was struggling to meet demand. "The old equipment served us well, but it could not deal with the increasing needs for exams in our region," said Claudio Tinoco Mesquita, Associate Professor of Radiology at Universidade Federal Fluminense and head of nuclear medicine at HUAP. "The waiting list had more than six hundred patients and the wait time for such an exam was more than 8 months," he added.
Following IAEA QUANUM audits in 2013 and 2017, which undertook a comprehensive review of nuclear medicine practices, and IAEA-led expert missions, a recommendation was made to upgrade the equipment at the Department. In 2022, the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission requested support from the IAEA for new equipment, and a dual-head gamma camera equipped with IQ-SPECT was installed at HUAP in August 2023.
"This donation changed everything. MPI scans that lasted over 20 minutes are now done in 6 to 7 minutes, and our waiting list is significantly shorter," Mesquita celebrated. "The impact in the first 10 months alone was huge, doubling our capacity and allowing more than 1 000 additional patients to have access to nuclear medicine procedures."
The new equipment also allowed HUAP to expand training on advanced technology for nuclear medicine professionals, and the Department started a new residency programme for medical physicists, who play a key role in performing such exams.
"This is a success story that connects the quest for quality and the fight to improve access to health services for poor people in Brazil," Mesquita said. "The support from the IAEA had a transformative role in our practice and a positive impact in the lives of many patients."
Through its technical cooperation and human health programmes, the IAEA supports countries in the use of nuclear and radiation medicine to diagnose and treat noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular conditions. The IAEA also supports the implementation of quality management systems to improve the quality and safety of nuclear medicine services.
