Clinica Villela Pedras - Unidade Leblon

Brazil's First Nuclear Medicine Clinic. The Villela Pedras Nuclear Medicine Clinic carries in its name much of the history of nuclear medicine in Brazil. This history begins in 1954, when young Dr. José Augusto Villela Pedras, after completing his studies and working as a resident fellow at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York (Presbyterian Hospital), obtains his American Board of Radiology certification in Tampa, Florida. Medicine was evolving rapidly and a new field was opening with the advent of radiotherapy and the application of radioisotopes in medicine. Upon returning to Brazil, Dr. José Augusto Villela Pedras suggests to his long-time friend, Dr. Costa Júnior, the opening of the first nuclear medicine service in Brazil, the Costa Júnior Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine Clinic. This clinic would become the embryo of what is today the Villela Pedras Nuclear Medicine Clinic, which took on this name after Dr. José Augusto Villela Pedras' sons joined the institution. Much has changed since then. The clinic has grown in usable space and service capacity. Currently it operates 14 modern devices, divided among units in Centro, Leblon, Campo Grande, and Petrópolis. Technological Primacy The effort to maintain technological leadership has been in place since its inauguration in 1954, with the acquisition of thyroid imaging devices—the first system in a private clinic in Brazil—and later with color scintillography cameras (the first in Brazil) and tomographic gamma cameras (Informatec), also the first in Brazil. Currently, the clinic has several gamma cameras, including devices dedicated to functional cardiac studies, having recently acquired the most advanced SPECT equipment in nuclear cardiology.