PraanaTech is developing a portable PET scanner to bring imaging closer to patients
PraanaTech is developing FlexPET, a portable PET system designed for targeted brain imaging. The idea is to bring scanning closer to patients, rather than rely only on where imaging equipment is already located. A smaller, focused system could give providers another way to offer imaging if it meets their clinical and operational needs.
A more focused scan
Positron emission tomography, or PET, uses radioactive tracers and a scanner to create images of processes inside the body. The University of Chicago’s Polsky Center describes FlexPET as automated and intended for scans focused on a particular area of the brain.
Founder and chairman Mythra Varun Nemallapudi has described a broader ambition to bring imaging closer to patients, including people facing possible Alzheimer’s disease or cancer.
From detector research to healthcare partners
PraanaTech says its core team grew out of a detector-research project that began in 2012. It says researchers worked with Academia Sinica’s high-energy physics group in Taiwan on compact PET systems.
The company says it is collaborating with hospitals to test its technology and is looking for business partners to bring it to market. Its account does not identify the hospitals or say whether the tests involve FlexPET.