At the time of this writing, elite athletes from around the world are demonstrating excellence in their chosen sport with only a virtual audience to support them. Yet, through the advances of modern technology, the world can still cheer them on and share in the many victories and successes of the XXXII Summer Olympic Games.
Kathy S. Thomas, MHA, CNMT, PET, FSNMMI-TS
In a smaller way, the same celebration was enjoyed by nuclear medicine professionals worldwide as we gathered together once again in a virtual setting to share the latest in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s (SNMMI) 2021 Annual Meeting.
Similar to the virtual event in 2020, the 2021 virtual annual meeting included the opportunity to participate in live continuing education and scientific presentations, explore the latest advances presented as scientific posters in the exhibit hall, and visit with sponsoring commercial sponsors. Then, in the evenings (or mornings, depending on your time zone!), we could relax and share information learned from the day's educational sessions, participate in the Knowledge Bowl, or maybe just compare protocols or techniques and catch up with friends from around the world in the Drink and Think sessions.
The annual meeting is also an opportunity to celebrate the excellence of technologists, scientists, and physicians presenting abstracts and posters. During this year’s Technologist Business meeting, the Technologist Best Abstract Awards as well as the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Tech-nology (JNMT) 2020 Best Paper Awards were presented. The JNMT 2020 Best Paper awardees are selected from manuscripts written in the previous year by a technologist as the first author in the following categories: Scientific Papers (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place), Continuing Education Article, and Educators' Forum Article. Take a moment to review the awards and photos of this year's best paper awards in this issue.
Although we could not meet in person, I'm sure those who participated in the virtual annual meeting will agree—it was a complete success! The SNMMI staff—which we know are the backbone of this success story—as well as the speakers and technical staff absolutely “Nailed It” and deserve gold medals for their dedication to excellence in making our meeting such a successful event.
In this issue, three continuing education articles offer a wide diversity of topics. First, nuclear medicine continues to play a vital role in treating thyroid cancer, one of the original theranostic studies in nuclear medicine. Julie Bolin discusses the latest approaches and treatment strategies in follicular thyroid cancer (1). Next, Rani Noble takes us back to basics to share techniques to improve the quality of brain imaging (2). Finally, Geoff Currie continues the MRI series with an overview of technological principles in MRI and PET/MRI (3).
The need to translate nuclear medicine technology lessons to an online platform has been a challenge for our educators. In the Educators' Forum, Sara Johnson shares strategies and practical tips for effective online instruction, including careful course design and implementation and effective communication (4).
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world, key image findings continue to be shared among imaging professionals, including the need to consider COVID-19 status before scheduling a PET/CT scan (5) and the visual results noted on a PET/CT scan following a COVID-19 vaccination (6).
For those interested in refining their adult dynamic renal scintigraphy protocols, don't miss the recent practice-based survey performed to establish a national U.S. reference value for diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid and mercaptoacetyltriglycine (7).
Phantom studies are used to assess and validate the accuracy of measurements in imaging. In this issue, 2 phantom studies are presented to estimate chest wall attenuation from 123I (8) and the accuracy of SUV measurements in SPECT/CT data (9).
Be sure to take some time to explore the diverse scientific and teaching case studies and the review summarizing the newly published book Pharmacology Primer for Medications in Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging (10) in this issue. I'm sure that you will find topics of interest specific to your clinical setting.
As always, I value your comments and suggestions. Please contact me at ksthomas0412{at}msn.com with your ideas to enhance the content and value of JNMT.
REFERENCES
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- No citing articles found.