KSNM 60 in General Nuclear Medicine: the Old Dream Comes True

Abstract

Since the establishment of the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine (KSNM) in 1961 by Professor Munho Lee, the KSNM has been progressing in various medical fields. Many papers have been published in the Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine (KJNM), the official journal of KSNM, since 1967 and other domestic/international journals. Here, we tried to highlight the academic activities of KSNM members from the perspective of general nuclear medicine. After the introduction of the ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc generator, general nuclear medicine has widened the field of clinical application with the advancement of imaging technology and emerging new radiopharmaceuticals; however, there have been many ups and downs. Treatment, as well as diagnosis, was a major concern in Korean nuclear medicine. With the recent advent of single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography, we hope that our old dream (diagnosis and treatment under the same principle of nuclear medicine) comes true.

Keywords: 99mTc; Computed tomography; Nuclear medicine; Scintigraphy; Single-photon emission computed tomography.

Fig. 1

Title (a) and the first figure (b) of the first original article published in the Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine [2]. The original figure legend for b reads as follows: “Red cell iron (⁵⁹Fe) utilization curve in normal controls and rabbits after 250r (air) irradiation in ten divided doses”

Fig. 2

The figures in the paper titled “Pinhole collimator scintigraphy in the differential diagnosis of metastasis, fracture, and infections of the spine” [13]. The original figure legend reads as follows: “a Multiple metastases to D11-L2 vertebrae from bronchogenic carcinoma demonstrated as diffusely homogeneous accumulation of radioactivity throughout the vertebral bodies by pinhole collimator scintigraphy (PCS). b PCS of multiple metastases to lumbar spine from bronchogenic carcinoma showing typical short-segmental accumulation of radioactivity along the end-plates of L4 and L5 vertebrae, while the accumulation is diffuse in L1 and L2 vertebrae”

Fig. 3

Representative image findings of ^99mTc-MDP bone SPECT in the paper titled “Bone SPECT is more sensitive than MRI in the detection of early osteonecrosis of the femoral head after renal transplantation” [57]. “A 53-year-old male renal transplant recipient complained of bilateral hip pain. Initial whole-body bone scintigraphy (a) and bone SPECT (b) show cold areas in both femoral heads, while MRI of both hips shows normal findings (c)

Fig. 4

Representative image findings of ^99mTc-DTPA SPECT/CT in the paper titled “Measurement of glomerular filtration rate using quantitative SPECT/CT and deep-learning-based kidney segmentation” [119]. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/computed tomography (CT) images of a patient a before (red arrow indicates a ureter stone and yellow arrow indicates a renal stone) and b 4 months after the removal of the left ureter and renal stones. A projection image is presented in the first column, axial images of CT (top) and SPECT/CT fusion (bottom) in the second, and segmentation results (automatic segmentation in the top and manual segmentation in the bottom) in the third