Nuclear Medicine News and Research

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Nuclear medicine is a branch or specialty of medicine and medical imaging that uses radioactive isotopes (radionuclides) and relies on the process of radioactive decay in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. In nuclear medicine procedures, radionuclides are combined with other chemical compounds or pharmaceuticals to form radiopharmaceuticals.

Nuclear medicine approach can be first choice for excluding pulmonary embolism in young women

Young women at risk of having a pulmonary embolism - a potential life-threatening blockage in a lung artery - should first undergo a ventilation/perfusion lung scan (V/Q scan) rather than a CT (computed tomography) angiogram, conclude authors in a paper published in the September Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

10 Sep 2007

PET MPI provides a more accurate "picture" of coronary obstruction

Physicians need to know how badly heart vessels are blocked before they can decide how to treat patients at risk of having a heart attack.

17 Aug 2007

Cerebral blood flow provides clues to treating depression

The usefulness of established molecular imaging/nuclear medicine approaches in identifying the hows and whys of brain dysfunction and its potential in providing immediately useful information in treating depression are emphasized in a study in the August Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

9 Aug 2007

Antibody targets nanotubes to tumors

Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have created biocompatible single-walled carbon nanotubes that can target lymphomas and deliver both imaging and therapeutic molecules to these tumors.

23 Jul 2007

New study explains placebo effect

Why do some people experience a “placebo effect” that makes them feel better when they receive a sham treatment they believe to be real — while other people don't respond at all to the same thing, or even feel worse?

19 Jul 2007

Study shows inaccuracies in cardiac PET-CT imaging

Current PET-CT scanners with standard commercial software designed to provide images of the heart are falsely indicating coronary artery disease in as many as 40 percent of patients, according to a study published today on the cover page of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

4 Jul 2007

Hypothyroidism linked to mood swings

Hypothyroidism is often associated with mood changes like depression lethargy.

5 Jun 2007

Time-of-flight positron emission tomography provides benefits for cancer patients

Moving from computer simulation to patient images, researchers are now demonstrating the benefits that time-of-flight (TOF)/PET (positron emission tomography) imaging can provide for cancer patients.

5 Jun 2007

What causes Alzheimer's disease?

Researchers tied the accumulation of the toxic brain protein beta-amyloid to Alzheimer's disease, according to a study reported at the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest society for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine professionals.

5 Jun 2007

PET plus CT - best test for ovarian cancer

An advanced molecular imaging technique influenced the management of women with ovarian cancer, detected more sites of disease and identified women whose disease was likely to progress, according to an Australian study released during the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest society for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine professionals.

5 Jun 2007

PET/CT best for monitoring Crohn's disease

The molecular imaging power of PET/CT is invaluable in noninvasively monitoring Crohn's disease,a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract that mainly affects young people, according to a study released by Belgian scientists at the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM.

5 Jun 2007

PET accurately identifies esophageal cancer patients' positive responses to chemotherapy

Early metabolic imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) accurately identifies patients responding to chemotherapy for esophageal cancer, noted German researchers at the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest society for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine professionals.

5 Jun 2007

Predicting treatment responses earlier for brain tumor patients

Using metabolic or molecular imaging to measure brain tumor patients' response to treatment is a powerful predictor of survival, notes a first-of-its-kind study presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest society for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine professionals.

5 Jun 2007

Percutaneous ethanol injection helps manage bone metastasis in thyroid cancer patients

Percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI), an injection of ethanol (alcohol) through the skin directly into a bone tumor to kill cancer cells, may be a valuable ancillary treatment for thyroid cancer patients whose cancer has spread to the bone.

5 Jun 2007

Combining molecular imaging technologies to stop/prevent heart attacks

The use of combined imaging technologies may hold the key to stopping and even preventing heart attacks, according to research reported at the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest society for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine professionals.

5 Jun 2007

Molecular imaging provides a better way to visualize heart disease

Technically advanced molecular imaging provides a 3-D way to significantly improve the diagnosis of heart disease, according to researchers at the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest molecular imaging and nuclear medicine society.

5 Jun 2007

Discovery of fungi that uses radioactivity as an energy source

Scientists have long assumed that fungi exist mainly to decompose matter into chemicals that other organisms can then use.

24 May 2007

FDG-PET imaging predicts lung cancer patients' response to chemotherapy

An earlier indication of whether chemotherapy benefits non-small cell lung cancer patients, provided by positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, can guide doctors in offering them better care, according to researchers in the May Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

10 May 2007

Average U.S. resident is exposed to nearly six times as much radiation from medical devices than in 1980

Data from the first large-scale study of U.S. population radiation exposure since 1989 show the annual per capita radiation dose increased 5.9 times, from 0.54 millisieverts in 1980 to 3.2 millisieverts in 2006.

18 Apr 2007

Early stage pancreatic cancer expresses antigen targeted by Immunomedics' PAM4 antibody

Immunomedics has reported in an oral presentation at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) that the antigen targeted by the humanized PAM4 antibody is expressed in early stage pancreatic cancer specimens, a stage before the tumor becomes invasive.

18 Apr 2007