The EU-funded project Digital Hybrid Breast PET/MRI for Enhanced Diagnosis of Breast Cancer (HYPMED), which is coordinated by the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR), is developing a fully digital MRI-transparent PET detector with a novel multi-channel PET-transparent MRI surface coil. This PET-RF insert will facilitate imaging of breast cancer with high-resolution/ultra-high sensitivity PET, combined with high-level structural and functional MRI, allowing minimally invasive MR and PET-guided targeted biopsy. This combination of MRI and PET has never been possible before and has the potential to greatly improve the detection and diagnosis of breast cancer, as well as tumour characterisation.

This ground-breaking combination of PET and MRI is also likely to have major benefits in other applications, such as prostate cancer detection and hybrid cardiac imaging. This will lead to a paradigm shift in the field of PET/MR hybrid imaging with many new applications in other diseases.

The European Commission’s evaluators gave the HYPMED proposal the highest score possible, which is all the more impressive considering the highly competitive nature of the Commission’s current Horizon 2020 funding programme. The proposal preparation and submission was supported and coordinated by EIBIR, who worked closely with the other nine partners from academia and industry across four countries. EIBIR’s support ensured seamless communication between the various partners and offered them crucial advice and feedback on the proposal. To keep update to date with the latest project developments follow the HYPMED Project on Twitter, and visit the project website.