Molecular radiotherapy is a viable treatment for extending lifespans of patients with inoperable liver cancers. Delivering individualised radiation doses, sufficient to kill cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, is critical. For promising new therapies, no practical calibration procedures were available, making it difficult for clinics to be sure each doses were truly personalised. This also presented a significant barrier to improving treatment procedures and maintaining compliance with regulations in clinics.

Download the full case study

Implanted medical devices that replace, repair or support the normal function of the body were one of the greatest medical successes of the 20th Century. Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, could offer high-quality, affordable medical devices specifically tailored to a patient. However, this technology lacked the knowledge of the build-up of errors that can occur from production to clinical use; required for quality controls and patient safety.

Download the full case study

Occupational health and safety agencies aim to protect workers from excessive levels of noise at the workplace which can damage hearing. Many industrial processes can generate ultrasound which is generally above the range of human hearing. However, ultrasound can be perceived particularly at high sound pressure levels. As no ratified methodology existed to measure ultrasound its effect on humans was not well known, potentially putting the health of workers at risk.

Download the full case study

In 2018, breast cancer claimed nearly 100,000 lives in EU member states. Early detection using x-ray screening campaigns can reduce its severity but despite intensified EC efforts, screening is still not uniformly available across the EU-28. New and emerging member states need knowledge and support to improve the accuracy of the vital measurement services that underpin individual patient x-ray screening and to ensure their safety from cumulative clinical x-ray exposures.

Download the full case study

Vulnerable patients receiving drug infusions in intensive care or for palliative relief require low volume drug delivery over extended time periods. Infusion systems operating at very slow rates are used to deliver these drugs. Accurate calibrations of the entire infusion system, from the drug reservoir to the patient are required, but current European calibration facilities cannot match hospital needs. Improved EU calibration facilities are required to support delivery of these crucial drugs.

Download the full case study

Conformity to standards can be required in legislation or at least presumed to reflect best practice. Accuracy in the rate of drugs delivered from infusion pumps to patients can be safety critical, but hospitals used test methods that did not apply metrological best practice, foreseeably allowing dosing errors to propagate. Despite the potential for harm, standards makers had not appreciated the need to promote robust calibration procedures in requirements for syringes used with infusion devices.

Download the full case study

Identifying new drugs is an expensive business. Drug discovery takes time and may offer developers a relatively low payback, especially for new antibiotic compounds. New, rapid methods to identify potential drugs could reduce cost and accelerate the introduction of new treatments. This is particularly important for antibiotics where many of our current drugs are becoming ineffective as resistance to them develops in the microorganisms they are designed to attack.

Download the full case study

Molecular radiotherapy can target cancers by going directly to the cancer site. Getting the right amount of a radioactive drug to the cancer is critical, but we are all different and individual responses vary to the same treatment. Accurate radioactivity measurements and sophisticated imaging techniques with the potential to measure the drug’s delivery inside the body are needed to ensure effective personalised cancer care.

Download the full case study

Molecular radiotherapy (MRT) effectively targets cancer while minimising damage to healthy tissue. It relies on safely getting short-lived radioactive products directly to the tumour and monitoring up-take using complex patient imaging. The accuracy of these measurements depends on the calibration of instruments for measuring radioactivity, using a method that gives traceability to the SI. Reducing the existing calibration chain will increase administered drug accuracy and lead to optimised individual MRT patient therapies.

Download the full case study

Molecular radiotherapy (MRT) is an innovative treatment that effectively targets cancer cells and has great potential to offer personalised treatment tailored to an individual patient’s needs. The key to wider use of MRT is accurate measurement. Improved measurement methods and use of sophisticated medical imaging techniques are needed to ensure that the dose delivered to the tumour can be confidently predicted from the measured radioactivity of the pharmaceutical or device before use.

Download the full case study

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is a promising new cancer treatment technique. It uses multiple soundwave beams which travel to tumours without harming healthy cells on the way – enabling safer treatment and opening possibilities for treating cancers deep within the body and brain. But as a new technology, it so far lacks standards and measurement methods to ensure accurate delivery of the sound energy that destroys the cancer.

Download full case study

External radiotherapy is aimed at killing cancerous cells, but can be dangerous to healthy ones. Modern radiotherapy machines focus multiple radiotherapy beams on tumours, which minimises harm to surrounding healthy tissue. To ensure that just the right amount of energy is delivered to kill the cancer, clinicians rely on beam strength measurements. As beam areas get smaller, new measurement methods are needed to accurately measure the strength of the highly focused beams used.

Download full case study