The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched the Parkinson’s Disease Biomarkers Program, which aims to accelerate the search for biomarkers in Parkinson's disease, in part by improving collaboration among researchers and helping patients get involved in clinical studies.

Amyvid (Florbetapir F 18 Injection) has received marketing authorization from the European Commission as a diagnostic radiopharmaceutical indicated for PET imaging of beta-amyloid neuritic plaque density in the brains of adult patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease and other causes of cognitive impairment.

The number of students entering nuclear medicine and radiation therapy programs increased in 2012, while enrollment in radiography programs dipped, according to the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) Enrollment Snapshot of Radiography, Radiation Therapy and Nuclear Medicine Technology Programs. ASRT reported a mixed employment outlook, with approximately 40 percent of nuclear medicine graduates unemployed after graduation.

Fully automated quantitative review of attenuation-corrected and noncorrected myocardial perfusion SPECT data provided performance at least equivalent to expert analysis for detection of stenosis of 70 percent or greater, according to a study published online Jan. 11 in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Nuclear medicine physicians and radiologists recommended additional imaging in approximately one-third of PET/CT reports, but more than half of these recommendations were unnecessary, according to a study published in the January issue of Clinical Radiology. Ordering clinicians followed recommendations for further imaging in less than one-third of the reports.

A molecular-targeted imaging method has depicted lymph node metastases intraoperatively in mice. In addition to providing real-time, accurate information about lymph node status, this pathology technique could set the stage for shorter operating room time and reduce unnecessary removal of healthy lymph nodes, according to the researchers whose findings will be published Jan. 15 in Cancer Research.

Tests such as SPECT, PET and MRI offer noninvasive alternatives for diagnosing patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). Some recent evidence tilts in favor of these advanced imaging modalities, particularly when a multistep strategy is applied to diagnose CAD. By ruling out low-risk patients, these screening tools may help to eliminate unnecessary treatments and their associated costs.

Molecular imaging is spurring dramatic shifts in medicine. The latest venue to witness the revolution may be the surgical suite. The Advanced Multimodality Image-Guided Operating (AMIGO) suite at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) at Harvard Medical School in Boston weds intraoperative imaging and navigation systems in a surgical environment to set the stage for intraoperative applications of molecular imaging.