Gamma imaging is a nuclear medicine technique employed in over 100 different diagnostic procedures. Also known as scintigraphy, the approach uses gamma cameras to image the distribution of gamma-emitting radiopharmaceuticals administered to the body, with applications including thyroid imaging, tumour imaging, and lung and renal studies. Most clinical gamma cameras are large devices designed for whole-body scanning and located in their own dedicated room. While such systems offer high sensitivity and a large field-of-view (FOV), they are not ideal for patients who cannot attend the nuclear med ..read more

A single dose of radiation can reduce the number of eye injections needed to treat patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). That’s the conclusion of a UK-based clinical trial of more than 400 patients with the debilitating eye disease. AMD affects 8% of adults globally, and is a leading cause of central blindness in people over 60 in developed nations. Neovascular (or wet) AMD, the most advanced and aggressive form of the disease, causes new blood vessels to grow into the macula, the light-sensing layer of cells inside the back of the eye. Leakage of blood and fluid fr ..read more

Key differences Example EIT exams in a man (a) and a woman (b). The waveforms show the tidal variation of the EIT signal, while the images show the distribution of tidal impedance variation (the numbers represent the ventilation fraction in each quadrant). The profiles show the distribution of ventilation in the front-to-back and right-to-left directions. The boxes on the right present parameters derived from the EIT data. (Courtesy: I Frerichs et al Physiol. Meas. 10.1088/1361-6579/ad5ef7) Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a radiation-free, non-invasive imaging technique that uses meas ..read more

Conventional medication is often limited by low drug effectiveness or intolerable side effects caused by the drug reaching parts of the body where it’s not needed. As such, there’s increasing interest in developing methods for targeted drug delivery, to increase the efficacy and safety of pharmacological treatments. One promising approach for localized drug delivery lies in the use of low-intensity ultrasound as a safe and practical way to trigger targeted drug release from circulating nanocarriers. Previous investigations using perfluorocarbon (PFC) nanodroplets as the drug carriers, however ..read more

More than 13 million eye tests are carried out in the UK each year, making it one of the most common medical examinations in the country. But what if eye tests could tell us about more than just the health of the eye? What if these tests could help us spot some of humanity’s greatest healthcare challenges, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s or heart disease? It’s said that the eye is the “window to the soul”. Just as our eyes tell us lots about the world around us, so they can tell us lots about ourselves. Researchers working in what’s known as “oculomics” are seeking ways to look at the health o ..read more

Ultrahigh-resolution images A series of PET images recorded by the NeuroEXPLORER brain PET scanner was chosen by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging as its Image of the Year. (Courtesy: Richard E Carson et al. Yale University, New Haven, CT). A series of ultrahigh-resolution brain PET images has been selected as the SNMMI Image of the Year. At each of its annual meetings, the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging chooses an image that represents the most promising advances in the field, with this year’s winner picked from more than 1500 submitted abstracts. The wi ..read more

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an essential tool used by radiologists to visualize tissues and diagnose disease, particularly for brain, cardiac, cancer and orthopaedic conditions. However, the high cost of an MRI scanner and dedicated MR imaging suite, combined with the scanner’s operational complexity, has severely limited its use in low- and middle-income countries, as well as in rural healthcare facilities. Among member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED), the number of MRI scanners (in 2021) ranged from just 0.24 per million people in Columb ..read more

Six in one Example tumour segmentations predicted by the deep transfer learning approach, for prostate cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, lymphoma, head-and-neck cancer and breast cancer (showing pre- and post-therapy scans). (Courtesy: K H Leung et al. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD) Whole-body positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) is a diagnostic imaging technique that can detect the spread of cancer or monitor a tumour’s response to treatment. But manual delineation of the multiple lesions often observed in whole-body images is a time-consuming task that’s subject t ..read more

Continuous monitoring The conformal ultrasound patch enables volumetric mapping of the major arteries in the brain and recording of blood flow spectra. The patch consists of an array of piezoelectric transducers connected by a five-layer stretchable electrode and a common ground electrode. (Courtesy: S Zhou et al. Nature 10.1038/s41586-024-07381-5, ©2024 Springer Nature) Monitoring changes in cerebral blood flow provides a valuable tool for diagnosing brain disorders. Transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound offers a low-cost, non-invasive way to evaluate blood flow in the brain, but the rigid de ..read more

The closing debate of the ESTRO congress always serves to both educate and entertain, and ESTRO 2024 was no exception. Billed as “Clash of the tartans – the great AI debate” – in a nod to this year’s Glasgow location, the presenters debated the motion: “This house believes that the radiation therapy care pathway will be delivered entirely by bots by 2040”. “The only way forward” The first speaker, Andrew Hope from the Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto, explained that population growth is leading to an insurmountable cancer burden, with worldwide cancer cases predicted to roughly doubl ..read more