The Role of 18F-FDG-PET/CT in Pediatric Sarcoma
Considerable debate remains regarding how best to incorporate 18F-FDG-PET/CT into clinical practice for pediatric sarcomas. Although there is a clear role for 18F-FDG-PET/CT in staging pediatric sarcoma, the value of 18F-FDG-PET/CT in prognostication for pediatric sarcomas remains unclear. In osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma, 18F-FDG-PET/CT may be most useful in the identification of skeletal metastases, where the literature consistently suggests that it has improved sensitivity and specificity as compared to bone scintigraphy. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - January 17, 2017 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Douglas J. Harrison, Marguerite T. Parisi, Barry L. Shulkin Source Type: research
Nuclear Medicine Techniques in Pediatric Bone Imaging
An important mandate when imaging pediatric patients is the reduction of radiation exposure to the lowest possible level consistent with good quality diagnostic imaging, so individual selection of radiopharmaceutical dosage and imaging technique is essential. Although the logistics of image acquisition and the approach to interpretation mirror the more common use in adults, the challenges of imaging young children typically require greater attention to patient preparation, positioning, and supervision during imaging, with the use of parental or family engagement in the procedure, gentle restraint, and occasionally the need...
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - January 13, 2017 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Laura A. Drubach Source Type: research
Nuclear Medicine in Pediatric Cardiology
Accurate cardiovascular imaging is essential for the successful management of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). Echocardiography and angiography have been for long time the most important imaging modalities in pediatric cardiology, but nuclear medicine has contributed in many situations to the comprehension of physiological consequences of CHD, quantifying pulmonary blood flow symmetry or right-to-left shunting. In recent times, remarkable improvements in imaging equipments, particularly in multidetector computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, have led to the progressive integration of high resoluti...
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - January 9, 2017 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Ornella Milanesi, Giovanni Stellin, Pietro Zucchetta Source Type: research
Congenital Hypothyroidism: Role of Nuclear Medicine
Thyroid scintigraphy holds a key place in the etiologic workup of neonatal hypothyroidism. Routine screening for this disorder in maternity hospitals in industrialized countries, for nearly 40 years, has permitted early treatment and thereby helped to prevent its physical and mental complications. Neonatal hypothyroidism affects approximately 1 in 3000 births. The most common causes are abnormal thyroid gland development and defective hormone synthesis by an eutopic thyroid gland. The incidence of the latter has risen in recent years, for reasons that remain unclear. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - December 15, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Isabelle Keller-Petrot, Juliane Leger, Aline Sergent-Alaoui, Claire de Labriolle-Vaylet Source Type: research
Nuclear Medicine Procedures in Children: Special Considerations
Nuclear medicine imaging in children is best accomplished when a child-friendly environment is provided for patients and parents. An approach that minimizes patient anxiety and fear is described. International guidelines for administered activity should be used to minimize absorbed radiation doses from radiopharmaceuticals. CT exposure parameters may be reduced to pediatric best practice for diagnostic CT and further reduced when CT images are needed only for localization purposes. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 30, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Michael J. Gelfand, Crysta Clements, Joseph R. MacLean Source Type: research
Letter From the Editors
Dr Pietro in Zuchetta, our guest editor for this issue, makes the point in his editorial that the practice of Nuclear Medicine in Pediatrics requires special considerations that are different from care of adult patients. It took many years of medical practice for Pediatrics to be recognized as a separate discipline from internal medicine. Children previous to that were treated like small adults with only minor consideration given to their different metabolic and physiologic requirements. In 1933, Pediatrics was recognized as a distinct separate specialty in medicine by the formation of the American Board of Pediatrics. (So...
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 24, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: M. Donald Blaufox Source Type: research
Clinical Amyloid Imaging
Amyloid plaques, along with neurofibrillary tangles, are a neuropathologic hallmark of Alzheimer disease (AD). Recently, amyloid PET radiotracers have been developed and approved for clinical use in the evaluation of suspected neurodegenerative disorders. In both research and clinical settings, amyloid PET imaging has provided important diagnostic and prognostic information for the management of patients with possible AD, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and other challenging diagnostic presentations. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 23, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Atul Mallik, Alex Drzezga, Satoshi Minoshima Source Type: research
Letter From the Guest Editor
This issue, and the following one, will cover many relevant aspects of the practice of Nuclear Medicine in Pediatrics. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 22, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Pietro Zucchetta Source Type: research
Letter From the Editors
This seminar devoted to advances in metabolic brain imaging reveals the remarkable strides that have been made in the past half century concerning our understanding of how the brain functions. As far back as 1948, 131I labeled to the dye, fluorescein, was used as a tumor-localizing agent with external detection with Geiger-Muller detectors and, subsequently, scintillation detectors.1 Regional brain blood flow was measured using scintillation detectors over the scalp after 133Xe administration either by inhalation or intravenous injection in solution. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 15, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Leonard M. Freeman, M. Donald Blaufox Source Type: research
Pediatric Epilepsy: Neurology, Functional Imaging, and Neurosurgery
In this chapter we provide a comprehensive review of the current role that functional imaging can have in the care of the pediatric epilepsy patient from the perspective of the epilepsy neurologist and the epilepsy neurosurgeon. In the neurology section, the diagnosis and classification of epilepsy adapted by the International League Against Epilepsy as well as the etiology and incidence of the disease is presented. The neuroimaging section describes how advanced nuclear medicine imaging methods can be synergized to provide a maximum opportunity to localize an epileptogenic focus. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 9, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: James M. Mountz, Christina M. Patterson, Mandeep S. Tamber Source Type: research
Dose Estimation in Pediatric Nuclear Medicine
The practice of nuclear medicine in children is well established for imaging practically all physiologic systems but particularly in the fields of oncology, neurology, urology, and orthopedics. Pediatric nuclear medicine yields images of physiologic and molecular processes that can provide essential diagnostic information to the clinician. However, nuclear medicine involves the administration of radiopharmaceuticals that expose the patient to ionizing radiation and children are thought to be at a higher risk for adverse effects from radiation exposure than adults. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 7, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Frederic H. Fahey, Alison B. Goodkind, Donika Plyku, Kitiwat Khamwan, Shannon E. O ’Reilly, Xinhua Cao, Eric C. Frey, Ye Li, Wesley E. Bolch, George Sgouros, S. Ted Treves Source Type: research
Updates in Molecular Brain Imaging
This issue of Seminars in Nuclear Medicine is dedicated to reviews and updates focusing on molecular imaging of neurologic and psychiatric disorders. Content expert contributors provide summaries of both clinical and research applications of molecular imaging to a range of conditions including common neurologic problems and syndromes as well as to emerging aspects of psychiatric neuropharmacology and behavioral brain function. A recent review describing the initial emergence and evolution of molecular brain imaging1 nicely summarizes the history of molecular brain imaging from its origins in relatively “pure” research-...
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 3, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Kirk A. Frey Source Type: research
Neuroblastoma: MIBG Imaging and New Tracers
Neuroblastoma is an embryonic tumor of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system, and is metastatic or otherwise high risk for relapse in nearly 50% of cases, with a long-term survival of (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - November 1, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Thomas Pfluger, Arnoldo Piccardo Source Type: research
Radioiodine Therapy
Radioiodine therapy for benign and malignant thyroid disease rose at the birth of nuclear medicine. Since then, this procedure has been performed countless of times in adult and in pediatric patients alike, and has contributed to a normalization of life expectancy in all but I-131 refractory differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) cases. As 131I therapy in children is almost exclusively given for DTC, this review of radioiodine therapy in children focuses on patients with malignant thyroid disease. The aim of the present review is to provide an overview of the indications, practical execution, and controversies surrounding 131...
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - October 31, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Markus Luster, Andreas Pfestroff, Heribert H änscheid, Frederik A. Verburg Source Type: research
Imaging in Central Nervous System Drug Discovery
The discovery and development of central nervous system (CNS) drugs is an extremely challenging process requiring large resources, timelines, and associated costs. The high risk of failure leads to high levels of risk. Over the past couple of decades PET imaging has become a central component of the CNS drug-development process, enabling decision-making in phase I studies, where early discharge of risk provides increased confidence to progress a candidate to more costly later phase testing at the right dose level or alternatively to kill a compound through failure to meet key criteria. (Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine)
Source: Seminars in Nuclear Medicine - October 27, 2016 Category: Nuclear Medicine Authors: Roger N. Gunn, Eugenii A. Rabiner Source Type: research
