In July this year, the Department of Nuclear Medicine at UP, in collaboration with Steve Biko Academic Hospital, ITG Isotopes Technologies Garching GmbH and NTP Radioisotopes SOC Ltd (a subsidiary of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation), pioneered an exciting first-in-human anti-cancer procedure utilising a combination of radiopharmaceutical diagnosis and therapy. The procedure was developed by ITG and performed in South Africa for the very first time by Prof Sathekge and his team, along with Dr Sebastian Marx and Dr Marian Meckel of ITG and Dr Otto Knoesen of NTP. The diagnostic procedure was accomplished using positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT), which is a sophisticated nuclear medicine imaging technique.

Prof. Mike Sathekge