Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Once again, this year's SNM annual meeting in Salt Lake City provided an excellent international forum and source of energy for the critical issues and burgeoning research affecting nuclear medicine.
As an organization, SNM addressed the lingering molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) shortage, job challenges among nuclear medicine technologists, reimbursement rejections from third-party payors for already approved procedures, and the need for comparative effectiveness research to validate and advance the profession.
The most pointed comments came from Robert Atcher, PhD, former president of SNM, who chided Canadian regulators, lawmakers, and Mo-99 producers for their part in the continuing isotope shortage, calling on Canadians to "get their respective acts together" to honor past promises for an adequate supply of the precious isotope.
Radiation dose reduction strategies were among the more than 600 scientific paper presentations and some 750 posters on display at the conference, as well as evolving radiotracers and biomarkers from several sources to image Alzheimer's disease, hypoxia, and other diseases and conditions.
Also of note at SNM 2010 was the absence of now-retired nuclear medicine patriarch Henry Wagner, MD, who did not attend the annual meeting for the first time in 53 years. In honor of Wagner's lifelong contribution to and achievements in nuclear medicine, SNM named him as the eighth SNM Honorary Member in the organization's history.
Wagner's annual duties of presenting the top papers at SNM's Highlights session and selecting the Image of the Year were handled by four of his colleagues in his absence.
Stay in touch with AuntMinnie.com in the coming days, as we detail more research from this year's meeting and offer discussion on the issues that will affect nuclear medicine's near- and long-term future.
