Kathy S. Thomas, MHA, CNMT, PET, FSNMMI-TS
It’s finally June! The school year has ended; children are looking forward to the long days of summer; families are putting the final touches on travel plans and summer activities, and once again, the nuclear medicine community from around the world will gather. This year, the annual meeting will be held in ‘The 6’ (Toronto, Canada) to share the very latest in innovative advances in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The annual meeting is also a time when we recognize excellence. For JNMT, that excellence is recognized through the JNMT Best Paper Awards. These awards represent manuscripts, written by technologists as the first author in the following categories: Scientific Papers (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place), Continuing Education, and Educators’ Forum. I hope you’ll join me at the SNMMI Technologist Section’s Awards, Recognition, and Business Meeting on Sunday, June 9, 2024 (12:00 pm to 1:00 pm EDT) when the best of the best are recognized for sharing their expertise with the nuclear medicine community. Not attending the meeting live? Then don’t miss the September 2024 issue of JNMT, which will include a full report of the awards presented.
This issue includes an unusually diverse collection of topics and discussions, including three excellent continuing education articles. The MIRD schema plays a critical role in calculating tissue radiation doses from radiopharmaceuticals administered to patients. In his comprehensive discussion of the MIRD schema, Zanzonico provides a basic review of the MIRD schema, relevant quantities and units, reference anatomic models, and its adaptation to small-scale and patient-specific dosimetry (1). Preoperative assessment of primary hyperparathyroidism encompasses multiple imaging modalities that may result in confusing findings and unsuccessful surgical outcomes. 4D SPECT/CT has been shown to capitalize on the strengths of SPECT and 4D CT to improve diagnostic accuracy and address limitations found with current imaging modalities used in isolation (2). Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. PET/CT imaging in lung cancer continues to play a critical role in staging and restaging disease, detecting recurrent or residual disease, evaluating response to therapy, and providing prognostic information (3).
Practical pointers provide nuclear medicine professionals with the opportunity to share a situation, tip, or best practice to improve or enhance diagnostic or therapeutic procedure quality. In this latest submission, Deimer shares a technique used in her facility to obtain perfect patient positioning for renal flow scintigraphy (4).
Work continues to improve the patient’s experience during molecular breast imaging and breast lymphoscintigraphy. Two sites share their experience of improving the patient’s experience through survey (5) and the use of vapocoolant analgesia (6).
As PET/CT facilities expand around the world, accurate radiation exposure and safety practices need to be assessed and standardized. Findings from Thailand and South Africa summarize work done in their cyclotron and PET/CT centers (7,8).
In the Educators’ Forum, a diagnostic image processing simulator for on-campus practical training is introduced as an option to provide student nuclear medicine technologists with a better understanding of nuclear medicine technology (9).
As reading time is available, explore the many interesting scientific manuscripts, radiation safety discussions, and teaching case studies included, or perhaps earn a few more of those much-needed continuing education credits.
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