Hell J Nucl Med
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Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a form of arthritis that affects the spine, the sacroiliac joints and sometimes the hips and shoulders. Andersson lesion (AL), was first described by Andersson in 1937 as a destructive vertebral body and discovertebral portion of the spine in AS. In this case, we report a 50 years old man with medical history of AS diagnosed AL by fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT).
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Nuclear medicine procedures are widely used as "in vivo" biomarkers in a large number of brain diseases, especially in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) and of parkinsonian disorders (pD). Furthermore, nuclear medicine is used in the differential diagnosis of dementias especially Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy's bodies (LBD) which share many clinical symptoms and often LBD is misdiagnosed as AD. The differential diagnosis between these clinical entities is crucial for treatment since LBD also shares some clinical symptoms with parkinsonian disorders. We reviewed the most relevant papers that study the usefulness of both iodine-123-ioflupane studied by single photon emission tomography (123I-ioflupane SPET) and of 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (123I-MIBG) cardiac scintigraphy in the diagnosis of PD and pD and in the differential diagnosis between AD and LBD in order to contribute to the clinical practice of the diseases.
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Biography Historical Article
Abass Alavi: A giant in Nuclear Medicine turns 80 and is still going strong!
Little was written in the stars above the city of Tabriz in Iran on March 15, 1938 indicating that a newborn citizen would immigrate to America and become a master of modern mo-lecular imaging with a sharp focus on 18F-FDG PET to the benefit of millions of people around the world. Nonetheless, that's what happened. A gifted boy who lost his farther early and grew up with his uneducated mother and two siblings in humble circumstances to become a premium student, nationally no. 1 in mathematics while in school, and later a medical doctor before he decided in 1966 to seek his fortune in the US. ⋯ Alavi is still going strong. What is certain is that very few persons, if any, has contributed so significantly to the development and clinical implementation of PET imaging worldwide as have this 80 year old giant in modern nuclear and molecular medicine. Abass Alavi currently holds appointments as Professor and Director of Research Education in the Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine, of the University of Pennsylvania and as Honorary Fellow of the International Society of Medical Olympicus Association in Greece.
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The term "Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCI)" is the most widely accepted term for cognitive complaints of otherwise apparently healthy older adults. It is presently clear that SCI might be a risk factor for the development of Mild Cognitive Impairment and dementia. As regards SCI measurement and potential diagnosis, several studies showed that SCI is a condition in which people score in the normal range on common tests but believe they experience cognitive decline. Hence, to assess the characteristic of the SCI subtle cognitive decline, self-report measures were developed to estimate "self-experience" of minimal decline in cognition seem the most appropriate tools. In this vein, the present study aimed at examining the capacity of the Greek version of two self-report instruments of the aforementioned type to detect SCI in community dwelling older adults. ⋯ Self-report questionnaires of "everyday" cognitive and memory failures seem to be associated with specific objective tests of cognition in aging. Hence, they are useful tools for detecting early cognitive impairment at least in older adults. Their administration together with objective cognitive tasks of high difficulty could substantially help for SCI screening. Given that there is also evidence that the experience of subtle impairment in cognition is related to increased likelihood of biomarker abnormalities indicative of AD pathology, the assessment of subjective estimations is revealed as a useful primary indicator of early AD effects on cognitive functioning.
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The aim of this study was to compare the metabolic activity of metastatic foci from breast and prostate cancer patients as scanned by fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) and by technetium-99m methyl diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) bone scan (BS). ⋯ No significant correlation was noticed in the metabolic activity-glucose utilization of metastatic bone foci between breast and prostate cancer cases. This observation validates the independent value of analyzed diagnostic methods and suggests negligible influence of glucose utilization in bone re-modeling in the above metastatic cancer cells. The 18F-FDG PET/CT bone scan was much better in diagnosing metastases compared to the 99mTc-MDP scan.