5C Network Launches Remote Centre of Excellence for Nuclear Medicine

It also includes AI decision-support tools for lesion tracking, SUV quantification and response assessment.

5C Network, an AI-native radiology company, has launched a remote Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Nuclear Medicine to expand nuclear medicine reporting across hospitals in India.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, the remote-delivery network is designed to address the shortage of nuclear medicine physicians in India by providing subspecialty remote reading capabilities, integrated directly into hospital scanners across the country.

Commenting on the new development, Kalyan Sivasailam, Co-Founder & CEO, 5C Network said, “India has the scanners, but not enough physicians to read them, and it cannot add them fast enough, at roughly 40 new specialists a year against volumes compounding at 13%. A Centre of Excellence is how you make scarce expertise travel: pooled sub-specialty readers, interpreting to a high standard, with AI supporting them for speed and accuracy.”

As per reports, over 500 PET-CT installations and 350 SPECT/gamma cameras rely on just 800 nuclear medicine physicians nationwide.

With PET-CT reporting limited to licensed specialists, a pool growing by only around 40 physicians annually while scan volumes surge 13%, scanners outside major metros operate far below capacity.

The Centre of Excellence is intended to address the capacity gap, with 5C Network estimating a potential national volume of nearly 7,500 PET-CT studies per day

Through a distributed remote-reading framework, the CoE seeks to connect local scanners to a national panel of credentialed specialists.

The platform incorporates standardised reporting criteria including PERCIST, Lugano, PSMA-RADS and SSTR-RADS.

It also includes AI decision-support tools for lesion tracking, SUV quantification and response assessment.

Additionally, to support the growth of the remote reporting network, 5C Network has appointed Dr Ajit Shinto to lead the CoE.

He has more than 20 years of experience, commissioned India’s first digital PET-CT scanner, and has reported more than 30,000 studies.

He has established nuclear medicine departments across Kovai Medical Center, Amala Institute, Apollo Proton Cancer Centre, and Bharath Hospital..

Sharing his thoughts, Dr Ajit Shinto, Head of the Centre of Excellence for Nuclear Medicine at 5C Network, said, “Nuclear medicine in India is limited less by equipment than by reading capacity. A remote reading model built on credentialed physicians takes that scarce expertise to centres that cannot hire it. What a Centre of Excellence adds is depth sub-specialty readers, structured reporting, peer review, AI in the read. Better science, closer to the treatment decision.”

Beyond remote reporting, 5C Network said the CoE will focus on research, multi-institutional collaborations, theranostics and new diagnostic molecules.

The company said this is intended to support nuclear medicine standards and attract incoming talent.

The platform is expected to initially focus on expanding reporting capacity for Tier-II, Tier-III and metropolitan hospitals across India.

The company also said the network has been structured to support potential international expansion in the future.

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