Dear Molecular Imaging Insider,
This issue of the Insider offers an update on radiopharmaceutical developer Navidea Biopharmaceuticals. Much has happened at the company over the past six months as it works to expand market reach for its Lymphoseek radiopharmaceutical for lymphatic mapping in patients with solid tumors.
Since last September, the company has received grant funding to further study Lymphoseek, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded the indications for its use. Read more about Navidea and its progress by clicking here.
We're also bringing you good news in the search for ways to produce technetium-99m outside of a nuclear reactor. Canadian researchers have achieved a major advance in cyclotron-produced technetium-99m, which could be an alternative to the traditional supply chain.
Should SPECT be used in psychiatric care? Read the thoughts of psychiatrist and SPECT proponent Dr. Daniel Amen, who advocates SPECT to help diagnose neurological conditions, remove the stigma of mental illness, and end the practice of psychiatrists "flying blind" when treating patients.
Currently, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will pay for only three FDG-PET/CT scans when they are used to guide subsequent management of antitumor treatment after initial cancer therapy. However, researchers at Johns Hopkins University are making the case for expanded Medicare reimbursement by showing how four or more follow-up FDG-PET/CT scans for lung cancer can alter patient treatment plans.
Advances in neurological and cardiac imaging are expected to fuel sales growth in the SPECT and PET radiopharmaceutical markets in the U.S. in the second half of the decade, according to a new market research report from Bio-Tech Systems. The report estimates that U.S. sales of SPECT and PET radiopharmaceuticals could hit $6.45 billion by 2022, reaching more than four times the estimated sales of $1.44 billion in 2014.
Finally, read comments by the president of the British Nuclear Medicine Society, who believes nuclear medicine may need to reinvent itself for the future. More specifically, nuclear medicine physicians need to shed their self-image as purely imaging-based physicians to become more involved in clinical areas, he said.
Be sure to stay in touch with the Molecular Imaging Community on a daily basis for the latest news and research.
