Integration of small animal SPECT and PET with other imaging modalities
P.E.B. Vaissier, Msc
Integrated PET/MRI in preclinical studies State of the art
F. Brunotte, MD
Methodological aspects of PET/MR imaging
M. Yaqub, PhD
Towards multiparametric medical imaging with PET/MRI: current clinical status
D.E. Oprea-Lager, MD
Combining radioactivity with fluorescence: the first clinical experiences using hybrid tracers
B.M.F. Winkel, BSc
The use of SPECT/CT in daily practice
B.L.F. van Eck-Smit, MD PhD
COURSES & CONFERENCES
Editorial
Multimodality imaging
More than ten years ago, we both were trainees in Nuclear Medicine. During that period, we only spent three months at the department of Radiology in the Academic Medical Center. We learned some things about conventional radiology, about MR techniques, and we were also scheduled to report on whole-body CT scans for a few weeks while being supervised by a radiologist. At that time, we couldn’t predict multimodality imaging would develop so fastly into clinical practice. However, a lot has changed in the last decade. Nowadays, in many hospitals PET/CT and SPECT/CT systems are available for routine clinical studies. This is the case not only for The Netherlands but also for Europe, USA and most developed countries. Also, recently PET/MRI systems as well hybrid tracers became available for clinical studies. In addition, in the field of preclinical imaging, multimodality imaging is now the state-of-the-art. The aim of this special issue is to learn our readers more about multimodality imaging and hybrid tracers. Vaissier and colleagues as well as Brunotte and co-workers will provide an update on the challenges and breakthroughs on the integration of small animal SPECT and PET with other imaging modalities including PET/MRI. Then Yaqub and colleagues will discuss the methodological aspects of combined PET/MRI, concentrating on the performance of this system for clinical studies. The current clinical status of PET/MRI has been reviewed by Oprea and coworkers. Winkel and colleagues present a fascinating historical overview of radio- and fluorescence-guidance techniques and the evolution of these technologies into an integrated hybrid approach. Moreover, the current clinical applications of hybrid imaging techniques are outlined, focusing on the first clinical studies in patients undergoing a sentinel lymph node procedure. Finally, van Eck describes some typical examples of the additional clinical value of integrated SPECT/CT versus SPECT alone. In light of the developments of the last decade it is likely that if we, in ten years from now, will look back and reflect on the current time, we will probably be amazed by the speed of clinical implementation of the, now sometimes seemingly futuristic, issues described in this special issue of our Journal. Therefore, to have our readers be a little better prepared for the future than the editors of this special issue were ten years ago, we hope that this edition of our Journal gives a glance at the (near) future.
Jan Booij and Hein Verberne
Editors-in-chief of this special issue