Impact of Tracer Retention Levels on Visual Analysis of Cerebral [F]- Florbetaben Pet Images.

Background: To compare visual and semi-quantitative analysis of brain [F]Florbetaben PET images in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) patients and relate this finding to the degree of ß-amyloid burden.

Methods: A sample of 71 amnestic MCI patients (age 74 ± 7.3 years, Mini Mental State Examination 24.

The brain cognitive reserve hypothesis: A review with emphasis on the contribution of nuclear medicine neuroimaging techniques.

Neuropathological and clinical evidence indicates that the clinical expression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) occurs as neuropathology exceeds the brain reserve capacity. The brain or cognitive reserve (BCR) hypothesis states that high premorbid intelligence, education, and an active and stimulating lifestyle provide reserve capacity, which acts as a buffer against the cognitive deficits due to accumulating neuropathology. Neuroimaging studies that assessed the BCR hypothesis are critically reviewed with emphasis on study design and statistical analysis.

[Ga]-Dota Peptide PET/CT in Neuroendocrine Tumors: Main Clinical Applications.

Objective: Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs) are generally defined as rare and heterogeneous tumors. The gastrointestinal system is the most frequent site of NENs localization, however they can be found in other anatomical regions, such as pancreas, lungs, ovaries, thyroid, pituitary, and adrenal glands. Neuroendocrine neoplasms have significant clinical manifestations depending on the production of active peptide.

Sensitivity of fluorine-18-fluoromethylcholine PET/CT to prostate-specific antigen over different plasma levels: a retrospective study in a cohort of 192 patients with prostate cancer.

Purpose: Several factors have been identified that predict positive fluorine-18-fluoromethylcholine (F-FCH) PET/CT result in patients with prostate cancer undergoing PET/CT for biochemical failure. Among these factors, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is the single factor most consistently associated with the prediction of positive F-FCH PET/CT. In this study, we wished to confirm this finding and expand it in a large series of patients.

Molecular Imaging of Huntington's Disease.

The onset and the clinical progression of Huntington Disease (HD) is influenced by several events prompted by a genetic mutation that affects several organs tissues including different regions of the brain. In the last decades years, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) helped to deepen the knowledge of neurodegenerative mechanisms that guide to clinical symptoms. Brain imaging with PET represents a tool to investigate the physiopathology occurring in the brain and it has been used to predict the age of onset of the disease and to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of new drugs.

Disseminated bone metastases from occult thyroid cancer effectively treated with debulking surgery and a single dosimetry-guided administration of radioiodine.

In this paper we report on a successful management of multiple bone metastases from differentiated thyroid cancer. In 2007, a 75-year-old female patient, previously referred for thyroidectomy for multinodular goiter, underwent surgical removal of a lumbar mass with histological findings of metastasis from well differentiated thyroid cancer. After surgery, serum thyroglobulin (sTg) was 204.

Radium 223 dichloride: a multidisciplinary approach to metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

The role of nuclear medicine physicians in the multidisciplinary team for the management of patients with prostate cancer has been restricted because of a lack of available tools. The only drugs approved to relieve pain related to bone metastases were β-emitting radiopharmaceuticals. These drugs did not prove to prolong survival when used as single agent and resulted associated with important adverse events.

Safety and antitumor efficacy of (153)Sm-EDTMP and docetaxel administered sequentially to patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Background: Bone metastases are responsible for most of the morbidity associated with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals have been approved for palliation of painful skeletal metastases, but their clinical use is limited by concerns of toxicities both when administered alone and especially when combined with chemotherapy agents.

Objective: We investigated whether docetaxel administered to mCRPC patients after treatment with samarium-153-labeled ethylene-diamine-tetra-methylene-phosphonic acid (Sm-EDTMP) has increased toxicity and/or reduced antitumor efficacy.

Optimal detection of sentinel lymph node metastases by intraoperative radioactive threshold and molecular analysis in patients with melanoma.

Unlabelled: The aim of this study was to optimize a protocol for radioguided biopsy of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) in patients with melanoma. The protocol was based on a combination of ex vivo counting of the nodes detected intraoperatively and analysis of the harvested nodes by hematoxylin and eosin staining plus immunohistochemistry (conventional histopathology [PATH]) and by molecular biology (reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR]).

Methods: A total of 124 patients with primary clinical stage I-II (according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer) cutaneous melanoma underwent successful radioguided SLN biopsy.

Comparison of different thyroid committed doses in radioiodine therapy for Graves' hyperthyroidism.

Despite vast worldwide experience in the use of 131I for treating Graves' disease (GD), no consensus of opinion exists concerning the optimal method of dose calculation. In one of the most popular equations, the administered (131)I dose is directly proportional to the estimated thyroid gland volume and inversely proportional to the measured 24-hour radioiodine uptake. In this study, we compared the efficiency of different tissue-absorbed doses to induce euthyroidism or hypothyroidism within 1 year after radioiodine therapy in GD patients.