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On December 18, 2000 the Acting Medical Center Director of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center (MVAMC) announced a decision to close the PET Center (text of announcement). This decision came on the heels of a December 15 announcement by HCFA (the Health Care Financing Administration) that it would begin paying for PET scans to aid in the diagnosis of cancers (newspaper article). The MVAMC PET Center ceased all operations on September 28, 2001, becoming the first PET center in the United States (and likely in the entire world) to be shutdown. The PET camera and cyclotron have been turned off and remain idle. In 1986 the MVAMC was awarded $4.4 million to purchase a PET camera, cyclotron and additional radiochemistry laboratory equipment. The PET Imaging Service was established in 1989 with $2 million of activation funding for laboratory renovation, equipment and laboratory supplies and start-up expenses. The MVAMC PET Center was a unique resource within the VA system, housing a PET camera, high-energy cyclotron and fully-equiped radiochemistry laboratory, a talented staff with proven ability to synthesize complex radiopharmacuticals, and a history of securing NIH grant funding for PET-related research -- more than $7 million in grant funding over the past 10 years. It was one of the few PET facilities in North America (and the only facility in Minnesota) which was capable of performing [18F]fluorodopa scans for the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease on a routine basis, and was the only facility in Minnesota producing [15O] and [14O] for research PET studies. |
