The Republic could have its first publicly funded state-of-the-art cancer scanner in 2004 if a proposal currently before the Department of Health is approved.
Pet or positron emission tomography scanning is the latest method of detecting cancer. It is superior to CT or MRI scans in making an accurate diagnosis in patients with suspected tumours; PET can also reduce the need for biopsies using invasive procedures.
The new imaging technique has a 90 per cent accuracy in detecting early lung cancer, according to Dr Conor Collins, consultant radiologist at St Vincent's and St Luke's hospitals, Dublin.
Dr Collins told the All-Ireland Lung Cancer conference, in Adare that the overall diagnostic accuracy of PET scanning was 83 per cent compared with 65 per cent using a combination of all other methods of testing. US research has shown that the availability of PET saves between €1,000 to €20,000 a patient and results in more appropriate management and treatment in almost 40 per cent of cancer cases.
While there is some debate internationally about the ideal number of PET scanners needed to service a given population - European recommendations suggest one scanner for 1 million people whereas in Australia the ratio is one for 3 million - The Irish Times understands that a proposal to locate a single national machine in a major Dublin hospital is likely to be approved by the Department of Health.
Sources have suggested that this will be complemented by a mobile unit to service the regions. A static machine costs about €1 million, with a further €1 million required to build a specialised unit to house the complex technology.
A small number of public patients in the State are scanned using a private-sector PET machine in the Blackrock Clinic costing about €2,600 a patient. One of Britain's six PET scanners is in Belfast, where some patients from the Republic have also been investigated.