In clinical practice: Work will continue to examine and validate future clinical applications for FDG PET/CT for oncology (diagnosis and staging, treatment planning and response, detection of recurrent or residual disease, restaging), for myocardial perfusion (coronary artery disease, myocardial viability), and for neurology and neurosurgery (brain tumors, medically intractable epilepsy, stroke, movement disorders, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias). Bioluminescence imaging, which enables visualization of genetic expression and physiological processes at the molecular level in living tissues, can identify specific gene expression in cancer cells and may be used to identify metastatic potential.

Education and training: An evolution in the education of physicians to fully and effectively utilize changes in practice will occur as new probes and technologies become mainstream. The diversity of the field will make the design of a common curriculum difficult.


Summit participants: Nearly 70 molecular imaging experts participated in the summit. Attending were industry representatives from Biogen Idec, Bioperspectives, Bracco Diagnostics Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, Capintec Inc., Cardinal Health, GE Healthcare, IBA Molecular, Mallinckrodt Inc., MDS Nordion, Merck & Company Inc., Philips, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, and Spectrum Dynamics. Also attending the end-of-July session in Key Biscayne, Fla., were representatives from the FDA's Office for In Vitro Diagnostic Device Evaluation and Safety, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Cancer Institute and NIH's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Individuals attended from Kimmel, M.D. Anderson and Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer centers and George Mason, Texas A&M, Thomas Jefferson, Vanderbilt and Yale universities, as well as the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania.

As the summit chair, Mathew Thakur, SNM past president and professor at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pa., assembled an exceptional molecular imaging think tank with assistance from Sandler, McEwan and Peter Conti, SNM immediate past president and USC professor. Individuals who participated and chaired the summit's panels included

* Basic research: Malcolm Avison (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn.), David Geho (George Mason University, Manassas, Va.), John Gore (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.), Lihong Wang (Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas) and Michael Welch (Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis, Mo., chair);

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