The diagnosing, staging and monitoring of cancer benefits from early response assessment. This includes patients with high-grade soft tissue sarcoma (STS), malignant tumors, which develop from fat, muscles, nerves, joints, blood vessels, bones and deep skin tissues. Until recently, oncologists typically had to wait months to see if treatment for this rare, and often deadly, disease was effective. PET/CT has changed that scenerio. Researchers now can assess a patients response or lack of response to treatment within one week of completing the first chemotherapy treatment. This is good news for both physicians and patients; physicians can make quicker, more efficient and complete treatment evaluations and alterations which may mean a better quality of life for many sarcoma patients. Another plus for U.S. based facilities is that Medicare coverage for STS was just added for initial treatment strategy.

What does the future hold for nuclear medicine? Molecular Imaging Insight asked two nuclear medicine expertsMarkus Schwaiger, MD, chairman, Department of Nuclear Medicine and professor of nuclear medicine, at the Technical Universtiy of Munich in Germany and Liselotte Hjgaard, MD, DMSc, professor in medicine and technology, University of Copenhagen, and director, department of clinical physiology, nuclear medicine and PET at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmarkto share their vision of nuclear medicine in 2020. How do their visions compare to each other, and to yours?

Although evidence-based medicine has been the focus of work by many healthcare researchers, molecular imaging and nuclear medicine has received scant attention in this arena. 

Molecular imaging is poised to make greater inroads into clinical practice in the next decade. Clinical evidence supporting broader use of PET/CT continues to mount, and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued a national coverage decision expanding Medicare reimbursement to 11 cancers.

The design and subsequent implementation of NOPR followed a novel concept (coverage with evidence development) that mandates the development of evidence prior to CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) reimbursement for services.

Molecular Imaging Insight visits pioneers across the country to determine how molecular imaging is improving detection, risk stratification and treatment of coronary artery disease.

As researchers continue to explore the role of stem cell therapy in cardiac medicine, molecular imaging will take center stage. Thats because transplanted cells must be tracked and monitored in vivo. Here is a closer look at various clinical trials focused on the potential of cardiac stem cell therapies that offer a better understanding of how various molecular imaging modalities will contribute to and measure the eventual clinical utility of cardiac stem cell-based therapies.

In an era that is becoming more focused on the need for developing evidence-based and personalized medicine, molecular imaging provides a detailed look into human physiology and disease at the cellular and molecular level.