Consensus Nomenclature for Radionuclide Therapy: Initial Recommendations from Nuclear Medicine Global Initiative.

Since its inception in 2012, the Nuclear Medicine Global Initiative (NMGI) of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging has played an important role in addressing significant challenges in the field of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The first 3 projects were dedicated to standardizing pediatric nuclear medicine practices, addressing the global challenges of radionuclide access and availability, and assessing the educational and training initiatives on theranostics across the globe. These efforts aimed to advance human health, foster worldwide educational collaboration, and standardize procedural guidelines to enhance quality and safety in nuclear medicine practice.

Production and regulatory issues for theranostics.

Theranostics has become a major area of innovation and progress in cancer care over the last decade. In view of the introduction of approved therapeutics in neuroendocrine tumours and prostate cancer in the last 10 years, the ability to provide access to these treatments has emerged as a key factor in ensuring global benefits from this cancer therapy approach. In this Series paper we explore the issues that affect access to and availability of theranostic radiopharmaceuticals, including supply and regulatory issues that might affect the availability of theranostic treatments for patients with cancer.

Clinical characteristics associated with idiopathic rapid gastric emptying in patients referred for gastric emptying studies.

Objectives: Rapid gastric emptying (RGE) is diagnosed using nuclear medicine gastric emptying scintigraphy (GES). The clinical symptoms are non-specific and its pathophysiology in the absence of gastric surgery is poorly understood. We aimed to evaluate the clinical characteristics associated with idiopathic RGE.

Very high coronary artery calcium score with normal myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging is associated with a moderate incidence of severe coronary artery disease.

Purpose: Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) has limitations in the presence of balanced multivessel disease (MVD) and left main (LM) coronary artery disease, occasionally resulting in false-normal results despite the high cardiovascular risk associated with this condition. The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence of severe coronary artery disease (CAD) in the presence of a very high Agatston coronary artery calcium (CAC) score (>1,000) in stable symptomatic patients without known CAD but with normal MPI results.

Methods: A total of 2,659 prospectively acquired consecutive patients were referred for MPI and evaluation of CAC score by CT.

Clinical utility of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in the staging of patients with potentially resectable esophageal cancer.

Introduction: (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) may play an important role in staging patients with potentially resectable esophageal cancer but its impact on clinical management remains unclear.

Methods: In a multicenter prospective cohort study of patients with potentially resectable esophageal cancer, we compared stage of disease based on PET/CT with the stage based on conventional staging performed before PET/CT (American Joint Committee on Cancer, 6th edition). The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with a clinically important change in stage, based on PET/CT findings.

Added-value of SPECT/CT to lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy in gynaecological cancers.

Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy (LM/SL) have been successfully used in pre-treatment nodal staging of gynaecological cancers. We hypothesised the added-value of LM/SL plus SPECT/CT in patients with early stage of cervical cancer and vulvar cancer. A prospective, single-center, diagnostic, open label, active control, non-randomized clinical trial has been conducted in 7 patients with FIGO IA-IB1 cervical cancer and 7 patients with FIGO stage I-II-IIIcN0 vulvar cancer.

SPECT/CT imaging of the lumbar spine in chronic low back pain: a case report.

Mechanical low back pain is a common indication for Nuclear Medicine imaging. Whole-body bone scan is a very sensitive but poorly specific study for the detection of metabolic bone abnormalities. The accurate localisation of metabolically active bone disease is often difficult in 2D imaging but single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) allows accurate diagnosis and anatomic localisation of osteoblastic and osteolytic lesions in 3D imaging.

Intensity modulated radiotherapy of non-small-cell lung cancer incorporating SPECT ventilation imaging.

Purpose: The authors performed this retrospective study to investigate the impact of using ventilation scans obtained from single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in selecting beam directions in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) planning in lung cancer radiotherapy to spare dosimetrically well ventilated lung.

Methods: For ten consecutive stage III non-small-cell lung cancer patients, the authors obtained both ventilation/perfusion SPECT scans and four-dimensional CT scans for treatment planning purposes. Each ventilation scan was registered with the corresponding planning CT and ventilation volumes corresponding to either > or = 50% (vv50) or > or = 70% (vv70) of the maximum SPECT count were automatically segmented.

Complementary roles of low-dose SPECT-CT and high-resolution volume CT for detection of coronary artery disease.

A 70-year-old woman with a high pretest likelihood of coronary artery disease (CAD) underwent a Tc-99m MIBI SPECT-CT study for myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), which was complemented by a high-resolution volume CT (VCT) study. After attenuation correction, an MPI pattern of ischemia was detected in the lateral wall of the myocardium. The CT calcium score (CTCS) was above the 75th percentile.

Role of nuclear medicine in the management of cutaneous malignant melanoma.

Malignant melanoma of the skin is one of the most lethal cancers. The disease may spread either locally or regionally and to distant sites through predictable or unpredictable metastatic pathways. Accurate staging and restaging of disease are required for appropriate treatment decision making.

Thyroid-stimulating hormone-stimulated fused positron emission tomography/computed tomography in the evaluation of recurrence in 131I-negative papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Unlabelled: Fluorine-18 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) detects recurrence of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) in thyroidectomized patients with elevated thyroglobulin (Tg) levels and negative (131)I-whole-body scans. This paper describes the utility of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)-stimulated fused FDG-PET/computed tomography (CT) scanning on our first 15 patients of this population.

Methods: Patients were prepared for PET/CT imaging with thyroid hormone withdrawal (n = 7) or recombinant human TSH (n = 8).

F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in the evaluation of distant metastases from renal cell carcinoma.

Purpose: We conducted a study to evaluate the role of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in the detection of distant metastases from renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Materials And Methods: Twenty-four patients with histologically proven clear-cell RCC undergoing surgical evaluation for possible resection of recurrent disease were investigated. All patients had suspected distant metastases based on conventional anatomic imaging techniques (computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging).