New Alcyone cardiac scanner installed in the Military Institute of Medicine — report from the opening ceremony and symposium Warsaw (Poland), February 9, 2012

On the 9th of February, the first Central-Eastern Europeannuclear medicine laboratory equipped with an Alcyone DiscoveryNM 530 cardiac scanner was opened in the Military Institute ofMedicine in Warsaw

Report from the opening of a new Radiopharmaceutical Production Center in Cracow, Poland, December 9, 2011

After opening a PET-CT-MRI center in June 10, 2011, the Voxelcompany started up a multiprofile Radiopharmaceutical ProductionCenter in the compound of the military clinical hospital in Cracow

Euro-American discussion document on entry and advanced level practice in nuclear medicine

The European Association of Nuclear Medicine Technologist Committee (EANMTC) and the Society of Nuclear Medicine Technologist Section (SNMTS) meet biannually to consider matters of mutual importance. These meetings are held during the SNM and EANM annual conferences. For several years, within these meetings, EANMTC and SNMTS have considered the value of having a Euro-American initiative in defining entry-level and advanced practice competencies for nuclear medicine radiographers (NMRs) and nuclear medicine technologists (NMTs). In June 2009, during the SNM annual conference in Toronto, it was agreed that a Euro-American working party would be established to consider advanced practice. It was recognized that any consideration of a definition for advanced practice would be predicated on an understanding or definition of entry-level practice. As a result, both types of practice would have to be considered. This discussion document outlines some of the background issues associated with advanced practice generally and specifically within nuclear medicine. The primary purpose of this document is to stimulate debate, on a Euro-American level, about the perceived value of advanced practice for NMRs and NMTs within nuclear medicine and to develop an internationally accepted list of entry-level competencies and scope of practice for NMRs and NMTs within nuclear medicine

Radiation exposure from diagnostic nuclear medicine examinations in golestan province

Introduction: The aim of present study was to estimate effective dose from most common procedures performed in nuclear medicine departments of Golestan province. Methods: Data of nuclear medicine procedures performed in 2 nuclear medicine departments in Golestan province were collected during 4 years. Effective dose, collective effective dose and effective dose per examination were calculated using standard dosimetry tables. Results: Based on the data of this study, results of 10437 nuclear medicine procedures performed during 4 years have lead to 3.97 mSv as average effective dose per examination and 10.37 human-Sv as mean collective effective dose. It was also revealed that Tc-99m was the main source of effective dose (98.3%), bone scan was the most common procedure (25.9%) and cardiac scan (MIBI-rest) has the highest collective effective dose (33.5%) during 4 years. Conclusion: Beside the cardiac scan which was the most common nuclear medicine procedure and the main contributor of effective dose in patients, due to geographical condition of the northeast of Iran, bone scan was the highest performed nuclear medicine examination in the Golestan province

The new integrated nuclear medicine and radiology residency program in the Netherlands:Why do residents choose to subspecialize in nuclear medicine and why not?

Purpose: To explore reasons that influence a resident's choice for the nuclear medicine subspecialty in the integrated nuclear medicine and radiology residency program in the Netherlands. Methods: A web questionnaire was developed and distributed among residents in the Dutch integrated nuclear medicine and radiology training. Results: A total of 114 residents were included. The survey results revealed four categories of incentives to choose the nuclear medicine subspecialty: 1) Expertise of nuclear medicine physicians and their quality of supervision in the training hospital, 2) Opportunities to do scientific research during and after residency, 3) Diversity of pathology, radiotracers, examinations and therapies in the training hospital, and 4) The expectation that the role of hybrid imaging will increase in the future. They also revealed four groups of disincentives to choose the nuclear medicine subspecialty: 1) Lack of collaboration and integration between nuclear medicine and radiology in some training hospitals, 2) Imbalance between nuclear medicine and radiology during the first 2.5 years of basic training during residency at the expense of nuclear medicine, 3) Uncertainty regarding the international recognition of the nuclear medicine subspecialty training, and 4) Uncertain future of nuclear medicine regarding the chances of employment and the ratio of work activities of nuclear medicine to radiology. Conclusion: This study provided insight into residents' motives to pursue or refrain from nuclear medicine subspecialization in an integrated nuclear medicine and radiology residency program. Medical imaging specialists in training hospitals and developers of curricula for nuclear medicine and radiology training should take these motives into account to ensure a sufficient outflow of newly graduated nuclear medicine specialists

Radiation exposure awareness from patients undergoing nuclear medicine diagnostic 99mTc-MDP bone scans and 2-deoxy-2-(18F) fluoro-D-glucose PET/computed tomography scans

INTRODUCTION: Medical imaging is on average the largest source of artificial radiation exposure worldwide. This study seeks to understand patient's awareness of radiation exposure derived from nuclear medicine diagnostic scans and assess if current information provided by leaflets is adequate. METHODS: Single-centre cross-sectional questionnaire study applied to bone scan and FDG PET/computed tomography patients, at a nuclear medicine and PET/computed tomography department over a 15-week period in 2018. Questionnaires on dose comparators were designed in collaboration with patients, public, and experts in radiation exposure. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis and quantitative data using SPSS (V. 24). RESULTS: A total of 102 questionnaires were completed (bone scan = 50; FDG PET/computed tomography = 52). Across both groups, 33/102 (32.4%) patients reported having a reasonable understanding of nuclear medicine and 21/102 (20.6%) reported a reasonable knowledge of ionising radiations. When asked to compare the exposure dose of respective scans with common comparators 8/50 (16%) of bone scan patients and 11/52 (21.2%) FDG PET/computed tomography answered correctly. On leaflet information, 15/85 (17.6%) patients reported the leaflets do not provide enough information on radiation exposure and of these 10/15 (66.7%) commented the leaflets should incorporate more information on radiation exposure dose. CONCLUSION: More observational and qualitative studies in collaboration with patients are warranted to evaluate patients' understanding and preferences in communication of radiation exposure from nuclear medicine imaging. This will ensure communication tools and guidelines developed to comply with ionising radiation (medical exposure) regulation 2017 are according to patients needs and preferences

Coded-aperture imaging in nuclear medicine

Coded-aperture imaging is a technique for imaging sources that emit high-energy radiation. This type of imaging involves shadow casting and not reflection or refraction. High-energy sources exist in x ray and gamma-ray astronomy, nuclear reactor fuel-rod imaging, and nuclear medicine. Of these three areas nuclear medicine is perhaps the most challenging because of the limited amount of radiation available and because a three-dimensional source distribution is to be determined. In nuclear medicine a radioactive pharmaceutical is administered to a patient. The pharmaceutical is designed to be taken up by a particular organ of interest, and its distribution provides clinical information about the function of the organ, or the presence of lesions within the organ. This distribution is determined from spatial measurements of the radiation emitted by the radiopharmaceutical. The principles of imaging radiopharmaceutical distributions with coded apertures are reviewed. Included is a discussion of linear shift-variant projection operators and the associated inverse problem. A system developed at the University of Arizona in Tucson consisting of small modular gamma-ray cameras fitted with coded apertures is described