Recently one of MPC’s illustrious physicists (Sharon Updike, MS, DABR) was honored at the spring meeting of the Central Chapter of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (CCSMMI).  Sharon was presented with the Steven M. Pinsky Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor the CCSNMMI can bestow upon a member. This distinguished service award or gold medal was to recognize her outstanding leadership in organized medicine and community relations and her many years of dedicated service to radiology and nuclear medicine. Sharon’s dedicated work with the ..read more

What an exciting time to be involved in nuclear medicine. After 20 plus years of mostly the same products and radioisotopes being utilized in nuclear medicine a whole new group of products and radioisotopes have been or are in the process of being approved by the FDA. While some of these products have been used in clinical studies at large academic institutions (with large teams to support radiation safety programs) we are now faced with the need for smaller facilities to develop policies and procedures before their first use. The required Nuclear Regulatory Commission/agreement state regulati ..read more

Eighteen months ago the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) developed a task force to monitor and provide guidance to the imaging community with respect to COVID-19 infections manifesting in various imaging modalities, primarily FDG PET/CT or PET/MR. With the most recent variant, omicron, an unusual imaging pattern has been observed in the upper aerodigestive tract and cervical lymph nodes. To read the full statement please visit the SNMMI media site here ..read more

In the June issue of ACR’s Quality and Safety eNews, it was announced the ACR MRI Accreditation Program (MRAP) has developed a medium-sized phantom. ACR’s senior advisor for medical physics also shared important details about the medium phantom with the medical physics community in the March-April issue of the AAPM Newsletter (see page 25). The medium phantom is an important modernization and improvement to the program.  The medium phantom was developed specifically for use in modern phased array head coils and allows sites to acquire phantom images for accreditation and for quality contr ..read more

Did you know the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) has developed a full program to assist your team in transitioning to the discontinuation of routine shielding of patient gonads?  When you decide the time is right, visit the AAPM CARES site for a full set of resources including training modules (with credit available) for all team members who will be involved in adopting the NCRP recommended policy to end routine gonadal shielding.   If you need more information please reach out to your MPC physicist. Giddy Up ..read more

Information Notice 2021-02: Recent Issues Associated with Monitoring Occupational Exposure to Radiation From Licensed and Unlicensed Radiation Sources was released on August 4, 2021.  This IN describes recurring findings from NRC inspections where licensees were only monitoring dosimetry reports for high exposures.  Several instances were observed where users were not wearing their badges correctly, or inconsistently and as a result the exposure was under reported.  The NRC is reminding licensees a full review of dosimetry includes investigating unusual exposures, not just high ..read more

The American College of Radiology will soon release ACRedit Plus, an updated accreditation database with a user-friendly interface and enhanced features making imaging accreditation more streamlined. This new process will be available for all imaging modalities except radiation oncology. Learn more about the changes from the ACR here: Keep ‘er Movin ..read more

March 30, 2021 FDG-avid reactive lymphadenopathy on PET/CT has been reported in patients following COVID-19 vaccinations.1 Reactive lymphadenopathy has been reported in up to 16% of the patients following COVID-19 vaccination with the mRNA (Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna) vaccines; this side effect has not been reported to date with the AdV vector vaccine (Janssen/Johnson & Johnson).2-5 Some guidelines recommend delay of imaging by 4-6 weeks following the COVID-19 vaccine (NCCN) if it will not affect patient outcomes.2 It is not known at this time if delaying imaging by 6 weeks after the second ..read more

On behalf of the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA*) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment manufacturers MPC is posting this message to assist in getting the word out. Please feel free to translate into local languages as necessary. The COVID19 pandemic impacts the way diagnostic imaging examinations are performed. Particularly, patients may need to wear masks during the examination, which may impose hazards in the MR environment. In December, the U.S. FDA issued a safety notification (found here) to remind patients and providers not to wear any metal during the MR examinati ..read more

Hello out there! We at MPC hope you all are doing well while navigating this new environment. This public meeting announcement came across our desk this morning so we thought we would share with our readers. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be holding a public meeting to discuss how NRC medical licensees can request temporary regulatory relief during the COVID-19 public health emergency through submission of certain exemption requests. The NRC staff would like to hear from medical licensees regarding the types of exemptions they may need during the ongoing public health emergency ..read more