Combining Nuclear Medicine With Other Modalities: Future Prospect for Multimodality Imaging.

This meeting report summarizes a consultants meeting that was held at International Atomic Energy Agency Headquarters, Vienna, in July 2022 to provide an update on the development of multimodality imaging by combining nuclear medicine imaging agents with other nonradioactive molecular probes and/or biomedical imaging techniques.

Trends in nuclear medicine and the radiopharmaceutical sciences in oncology: workforce challenges and training in the age of theranostics.

Although the promise of radionuclides for the diagnosis and treatment of disease was recognised soon after the discovery of radioactivity in the late 19th century, the systematic use of radionuclides in medicine only gradually increased over the subsequent hundred years. The past two decades, however, has seen a remarkable surge in the clinical application of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, particularly in oncology. This development is an exciting time for the use of theranostics in oncology, but the rapid growth of this area of nuclear medicine has created challenges as well. In particular, the infrastructure for the manufacturing and distribution of radiopharmaceuticals remains in development, and regulatory bodies are still optimising guidelines for this new class of drug. One issue of paramount importance for achieving equitable access to theranostics is building a sufficiently trained workforce in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries. Here, we discuss the key challenges and opportunities that face the field as it seeks to build its workforce for the 21st century.

Noninvasive diagnostic imaging for endometriosis part 2: a systematic review of recent developments in magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine and computed tomography.

Endometriosis affects 1 in 9 women, taking 6.4 years to diagnose using conventional laparoscopy. Non-invasive imaging enables timelier diagnosis, reducing diagnostic delay, risk and expense of surgery. This review updates literature exploring the diagnostic value of specialist endometriosis magnetic resonance imaging (eMRI), nuclear medicine (NM) and computed tomography (CT). Searching after the 2016 IDEA consensus, 6192 publications were identified, with 27 studies focused on imaging for endometriosis. eMRI was the subject of 14 papers, NM and CT, 11, and artificial intelligence (AI) utilizing eMRI, 2. eMRI papers describe diagnostic accuracy for endometriosis, methodologies, and innovations. Advantages of eMRI include its: ability to diagnose endometriosis in those unable to tolerate transvaginal endometriosis ultrasound (eTVUS); a panoramic pelvic view, easy translation to surgical fields; identification of hyperintense iron in endometriotic lesions; and ability to identify super-pelvic lesions. Sequence standardization means eMRI is less operator-dependent than eTVUS, but higher costs limit its role to a secondary diagnostic modality. eMRI for deep and ovarian endometriosis has sensitivities of 91-93.5% and specificities of 86-87.5% making it reliable for surgical mapping and diagnosis. Superficial lesions too small for detection in larger capture sequences, means a negative eMRI doesn't exclude endometriosis. Combined with thin sequence capture and improved reader expertise, eMRI is poised for rapid adoption into clinical practice. NM labeling is diagnostically limited in absence of suitable unique marker for endometrial-like tissue. CT studies expose the reproductively aged to radiation. AI diagnostic tools, combining independent eMRI and eTVUS endometriosis markers, may result in powerful capability. Broader eMRI use, will optimize standards and protocols. Reporting systems correlating to surgical anatomy will facilitate interdisciplinary preoperative dialogues. eMRI endometriosis diagnosis should reduce repeat surgeries with mental and physical health benefits for patients. There is potential for early eMRI diagnoses to prevent chronic pain syndromes and protect fertility outcomes.

Nuclear Medicine-A Name for Now and the Future.

ABSTRACT: Our article addresses the prevailing trend of new terminology introduced alongside the progress being made in nuclear medicine. Our article provides a historic, current, and future perspective.

Advances in Radiopharmaceutical Sciences for Vascular Inflammation Imaging: Focus on Clinical Applications.

Biomedical imaging technologies offer identification of several anatomic and molecular features of disease pathogenesis. Molecular imaging techniques to assess cellular processes in vivo have been useful in advancing our understanding of several vascular inflammatory diseases. For the non-invasive molecular imaging of vascular inflammation, nuclear medicine constitutes one of the best imaging modalities, thanks to its high sensitivity for the detection of probes in tissues. 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose ([18F]FDG) is currently the most widely used radiopharmaceutical for molecular imaging of vascular inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis and large-vessel vasculitis. The combination of [18F]FDG and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging has become a powerful tool to identify and monitor non-invasively inflammatory activities over time but suffers from several limitations including a lack of specificity and avid background in different localizations. The use of novel radiotracers may help to better understand the underlying pathophysiological processes and overcome some limitations of [18F]FDG PET for the imaging of vascular inflammation. This review examines how [18F]FDG PET has given us deeper insight into the role of inflammation in different vascular pathologies progression and discusses perspectives for alternative radiopharmaceuticals that could provide a more specific and simple identification of pathologies where vascular inflammation is implicated. Use of these novel PET tracers could lead to a better understanding of underlying disease mechanisms and help inform the identification and stratification of patients for newly emerging immune-modulatory therapies. Future research is needed to realize the true clinical translational value of PET imaging in vascular inflammatory diseases.

Theranostic Advances in Breast Cancer in Nuclear Medicine.

The implication of 'theranostic' refers to targeting an identical receptor for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, by the same radioligand, simultaneously or separately. In regard to extensive efforts, many considerable theranostic tracers have been developed in recent years. Emerging evidence strongly demonstrates the tendency of nuclear medicine towards therapies based on a diagnosis. This review is focused on the examples of targeted radiopharmaceuticals for the imaging and therapy of breast cancer.

Expert consensus on the safety prevention and control of nuclear medicine diagnosis and treatment during the outbreak of COVID-19 (1st edition): (translated from Chinese version).

In December 2019, an infectious disease caused by a new type of coronavirus infection was prevalent in Wuhan and across the country. On January 20, 2020, the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China issued No.1 Announcement, which incorporated the novel coronavirus pneumonia into the Class B infectious disease according to the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease, but the disease should be adopted in the management of Class A infectious disease. In order to effectively control the source of infection, cut off the transmission route, protect the susceptible population, ensure the medical quality and medical safety, perform epidemic prevention and control, and comprehensively guarantee the life safety and physical health of medical staff, patients, and family members, it is very important to organize and carry out nuclear medicine diagnosis and treatment scientifically and safely. According to the national prevention and control policy, Chinese Society of Nuclear Medicine and editorial board of the Chinese Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging organized professionals to formulate the expert consensus on the safety prevention process of nuclear medicine imaging and nuclide therapy during the period of new coronavirus infection.

Artificial Neural Networks in Cardiovascular Diseases and its Potential for Clinical Application in Molecular Imaging.

In medical imaging, Artificial Intelligence is described as the ability of a system to properly interpret and learn from external data, acquiring knowledge to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation. The number of possible applications of Artificial Intelligence is also huge in clinical medicine and cardiovascular diseases. To describe for the first time in literature, the main results of articles about Artificial Intelligence potential for clinical applications in molecular imaging techniques, and to describe its advancements in cardiovascular diseases assessed with nuclear medicine imaging modalities. A comprehensive search strategy was used based on SCOPUS and PubMed databases. From all studies published in English, we selected the most relevant articles that evaluated the technological insights of AI in nuclear cardiology applications. Artificial Intelligence may improve patient care in many different fields, from the semi-automatization of the medical work, through the technical aspect of image preparation, interpretation, the calculation of additional factors based on data obtained during scanning, to the prognostic prediction and risk-- group selection. Myocardial implementation of Artificial Intelligence algorithms in nuclear cardiology can improve and facilitate the diagnostic and predictive process, and global patient care. Building large databases containing clinical and image data is a first but essential step to create and train automated diagnostic/prognostic models able to help the clinicians to make unbiased and faster decisions for precision healthcare.