‘Seeing more by looking further’ is the beautiful, somewhat Cruijffian theme of Conny van der Laken’s inaugural lecture. It is literally about seeing more on a better image and looking further with computers so that imaging can be made more suitable for use in healthcare. With her research, Van der Laken focuses on improving the diagnosis and treatment of chronic rheumatic autoimmune diseases, in which the patient’s immune system becomes active against body tissue. She does this with the help of smart imaging techniques.
PET scan with marker substance
Conny van der Laken, for example, works closely with nuclear medicine specialists to visualize the immune system in as much detail as possible. For example, she develops marker substances that become visible in the patient’s body with a PET scan. Her research group conducts both patient-related and laboratory research. The aim is to detect rheumatic diseases as early as possible. She and her research group already made great progress in rheumatoid arthritis in 2012. Since then, with a PET scan with a marker substance, the disease can be detected more than a year earlier than the rheumatologist can diagnose the disease with a physical examination.
See more with PET scan
In addition to early detection, Van der Laken focuses on the right treatment for the right patient, or ‘personalized medicine’. The research group of the new professor has shown, with a PET scan and an injection of marker substances, that the effect of various rheumatism medicines in rheumatoid arthritis patients can be predicted. This is probably even possible in an early phase of the treatment. To see even more, Van der Laken wants to look even further by using AI. Computers are trained to be able to read scans faster and more accurately.
Patients as motivation
Surrounded by high tech, Conny van der Laken never forgets why she started this work. The patient remains at the center of everything she does. She says on the website of Amsterdam UMC: “Patients are my motivation for the research. For example, a few years ago a man of about 70 years old came to my office. He had numerous complaints that hindered him greatly in daily life. Extensive analysis elsewhere of general symptoms, weight loss and joint pains had yielded nothing. I decided to do a PET scan that showed multiple inflammations in his joints, which could indicate rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis. He received treatment for this and his complaints completely disappeared.”
Another patient, a passionate secondary school teacher, also made a deep impression on her. She had several very painful tendon attachments to her joints or enthesitis that forced her to stop working. That personal story prompted van der Laken to develop imaging technology for enthesitis. “I look forward to continuing to work with many other researchers on new developments and applications of imaging techniques in order to improve the treatment of patients with rheumatic diseases,” says the enthusiastic new professor.
ICT&health congres 2023
On January 30, 2023, ICT&health kicks off the new healthcare year with the annual major and influential healthcare conference on healthcare transformation.
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