UZ Brussel is well recognized amidst the university hospital landscape of Flanders and Brussels region and is closely associated with the Medicine and Pharmacy Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The clinical Nuclear Medicine Department maintains the necessary specialist knowledge, the facilities and the legal certifications to be able to provide qualified diagnostic care, treatment and training. The mission of the Radiation Oncology department of the UZ Brussels is “to offer the optimal and most efficient radiation therapy tailored to the individual patient, through development and clinical implementation of novel irradiation techniques.” The radiobiological research unit is focussed on hypoxic tumour cell radiosensitization and the role of pro-inflammatory infiltrate on radiation response. About 1500 patients a year are treated in 2 sites, applying a multi-vendor philosophy with dedicated technology to optimize the individualized treatment approach.
Key figures
1 in training
1 radiopharmacist
1 medical physicist
The department has a strong research group with training programs at Master and PhD level (Medical Science and Physics), as well as specialization in radiation oncology. Verellen D et al, Nature reviews Cancer, 2007.
Laarbeeklaan 101
1090 Brussels
https://www.uzbrussel.be/web/international/
Nuclear medicine
tony.lahoutte@uzbrussel.be
Radiopharmacy – Brussels Imaging Pharmacy
Vicky.Caveliers@uzbrussel.be
Radiotherapy
https://www.uzbrussel.be/web/radiotherapie/in-het-uz-brussel
radiotherapie@uzbrussel.be
mark.deridder@uzbrussel.be
MITH, Molecular Imaging and Therapy
https://mith.research.vub.be/
mith@vub.be
Research and clinical axes & activities
UZ Brussel is well recognized amidst the university hospital landscape of Flanders and Brussels region and is closely associated with the Medicine and Pharmacy Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The clinical Nuclear Medicine Department maintains the necessary specialist knowledge, the facilities and the legal certifications to be able to provide qualified diagnostic care, treatment and training.
The nuclear medicine department is part of the Medical Imaging Centre at UZ Brussel and equipped with 4 SPECT cameras (1 SPECT/CT), and 2 PET cameras (1 PET/CT). The clinical activities include PET imaging in oncology with 18F-FDG, 18F-FET, 68Ga-octreotide and the full spectrum of conventional nuclear medicine applications. One patient room is dedicated to radionuclide therapy. Research activities involve phase I/II clinical trials with newly developed radiopharmaceuticals and hypoxia imaging.
Application fields
- PET/CT imaging is applied for the diagnosis, staging, follow-up of cancer and radiotherapy planning.
- Brain imaging is applied for the differential diagnosis of dementia.
- Applications of SPECT imaging include imaging studies to detect bone diseases, cardiac ischemia, renal disorders, pulmonary embolism and parathyroid disorders.
- One SPECT camera is dedicated to pediatric applications
- Iodine-131 radionuclide therapy for treatment of thyroid disorders.
Ongoing projects/partnerships/collaborations
Ongoing clinical trials in the nuclear medicine department include 1) a phase I trial in breast cancer patients with an in-house developed nanobody-based anti-HER2 imaging PET tracer and 2) non-invasive mapping of tumor hypoxia for Biologically Modulated Radiotherapy in patients with locally advanced head-and-neck cancer and patients stage III non-small cell lung cancer. The department collaborates in several industry sponsored clinical trials in Neurology, Gastroenterology and Oncology.
The department of oncology has a strong collaboration with industry, which emanated a.o. in the following realizations: (1) development of 6DOF robotic treatment couch and respiratory gated irradiation on the Novalis system based on stereoscopic X-ray imaging (BrainLAB AG), (2) development and clinical validation of gimballed-based linac system for respiratory synchronized tumour tracking, the VERO system (BrianLAB AG), (3) Development of sequential and helical tomotherapy ( Accuray Inc). There are on going collaborations with several academic partners.