Wagner presents results on ADAC's MCD

At last month's European Association of Nuclear Medicine Congress in Glasgow, Scotland, Dr. Henry Wagner presented preliminary results on the Molecular Coincidence Detection high-energy imaging technique under development by ADAC Laboratories of Milpitas, CA. Wagner, who is a professor of radiation health sciences at John Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, said MCD could change the way patients with lung cancer are treated.

Wagner is participating in a multicenter clinical trial sponsored by ADAC to demonstrate the clinical effectiveness of MCD in oncology patients whose cancer may have metastasized. ADAC hopes that MCD can help differentiate between benign and malignant nodules, and determine whether surgical treatment is most appropriate.

In Wagner's trials, 35 patients were studied, with MCD producing a 96% sensitivity and an 80% specificity. Results from MCD could enable physicians to identify, prior to surgery, lung cancer patients who have a good chance of surgical cure and those who should be treated instead by radiation or chemotherapy, thus avoiding unnecessary surgery, according to Wagner.