Dear Molecular Imaging Insider,
The use of evidence-based medicine, a five-step process for the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about patient care, has shown PET to be a hands-down winner when it comes to staging colorectal carcinoma liver metastases.
In a presentation at last week's European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna, Austria, Dr. John Sheehan of St. Vincent's University Hospital Blackrock Clinic PET Center in Dublin, Ireland, presented compelling data in support of PET as the primary modality for staging this disease.
His group found that use of the technology was in discordance with CT, MR, and ultrasound in 64% of the cases it examined. It also found a 35% change in patient management compared with the conventional modalities.
As a Molecular Imaging Insider subscriber, you have access to this story before it's published for the rest of our AuntMinnie.com members. To read more about using evidence-based medicine to change imaging technology protocols, click here.
In related news, PET/CT showed itself to be the strongest modality for cancer staging when it was compared with PET, CT, and PET plus CT. At the ECR show, Dr. Patrick Veit, a research fellow from the department of diagnostic, interventional, and neuroradiology at the University Hospital of Essen in Germany, presented data gleaned from 260 PET/CT cases at his facility in support of the unified modality. Find out more by clicking here.
Be sure to stop by AuntMinnie next week, as we'll be reporting from the annual Academy of Molecular Imaging (AMI) conference, taking place this year in Orlando, FL.
In addition, if you haven't done so this month, be sure to stop in and take a look at our online reference book, Nuclear Medicine on the Internet. Dr. Scott Williams has updated 19 chapters for March, covering subjects from adrenal imaging to thyroid nodules. Check out his most current postings by clicking here.
Lastly, if there's any aspect of molecular imaging you'd like to see covered on AuntMinnie, or you have a comment or suggestion about the field, please contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.
