A History of Nuclear Medicine in the UK Radionuclide Investigation of the Brain

Excerpt

In the UK, the institute of Nuclear Medicine in London has played an important role in the development of radionuclide investigation of brain. This chapter summarises the very early days of blood brain barrier imaging with labelled pertechnetate, and the use of 3" and 5" sodium iodide crystal scanners in the 60’s, with added simple data processing in the 70’s, progress was continuous, with the introduction of SPET, lyphophilic Tc99m labelled tracers for blood flow studies, the emergence of dopamine transporter imaging in patients with presumed Parkinson’s disease, followed by PET/CT and assessment of glucose metabolism with labelled FDG, and finally the UK introduction of PET/MR and the investigation of the dementias, with labelled amyloid.