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News

Posted Jan 25, 2011

Millions Benefit from Advances in Nuclear Medicine

Reston, Va. (January 28, 2011) — Over 16 million Americans undergo nuclear medicine procedures each year for a variety of conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurological conditions and other physiological problems. With continual advances in the field, nuclear medicine has evolved to provide information that once would have required many medical studies, without surgery or invasive procedures.
Nuclear medicine is a type of molecular imaging that offers a detailed picture of what is happening inside the body at the molecular and cellular level. While other diagnostic imaging procedures like X-rays, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) primarily provide structural pictures, nuclear medicine scans, such as positron emission tomography (PET) or single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), allow physicians to measure chemical and biological processes to see how the body is functioning.

“The practice of nuclear medicine can be broken down into two main categories: diagnosis and treatment,” said Dominique Delbeke, M.D., president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM). “The advances in these areas are crucial to improving the science, technology and practical application of nuclear medicine.”

Recent advances in diagnosis often involve fusion imaging—the combination of functional imaging modalities such as PET or SPECT with anatomical imaging modalities like CT or MRI. Fusion imaging allows a physician to better determine both what is happening in the patient’s body and exactly where in the body it is occurring. Fusion imaging includes PET/CT, SPECT/CT, and—new on the horizon—PET/MRI.

Nuclear medicine can also play a role in the treatment of various diseases. Radioiodine I-131 has been used for decades to treat Graves Disease and thyroid cancer. More recently, advances have been made in radioimmunotherapy, which is a treatment for cancer that targets radiation-emitting molecules directly to affected areas of the body. This treatment has been effective in curing patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and it is now being explored as a treatment for other types of cancer.

“For more than 50 years, SNM members have developed innovations in the research and practice of nuclear medicine,” said Delbeke. “We look forward to continuing to explore the possibilities in molecular imaging with the ultimate goal of improving human health.”

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About SNM—Advancing Molecular Imaging and Therapy

SNM is an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to raising public awareness about what molecular imaging is and how it can help provide patients with the best health care possible. SNM members specialize in molecular imaging, a vital element of today’s medical practice that adds an additional dimension to diagnosis, changing the way common and devastating diseases are understood and treated.

SNM’s more than 17,000 members set the standard for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine practice by creating guidelines, sharing information through journals and meetings and leading advocacy on key issues that affect molecular imaging and therapy research and practice. For more information, visit http://www.snm.org.