Report of a summit on molecular imaging

The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) jointly convened a workshop on molecular imaging (MI) in April 2005. The purpose was to anticipate the changes in the imaging sciences that might result as molecular biology, nanotechnology, genomics, and proteomics increasingly impact upon everyday medical practice in general and upon imaging in particular (2-4). The meeting was attended by physicians, scientists, and staff representing the Academy of Molecular Imaging (AMI), the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the American Board of Nuclear Medicine (ABNM), the American Board of Radiology (ABR), the American College of Radiology (ACR), the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR), the Canadian Association/Society of Nuclear Medicine (CASNM), the European Congress of Radiology (ECR), the Federacion Mexicana de Radiologia e Imagen (FMRI), the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), the RSNA, the Society for Molecular Imaging (SMI), the SNM, and the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences (SRC). MI is not new. Many speakers reflected that the one context in which the concept has already reached the bedside is the use of fluorine 18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET), principally in cancer diagnosis. Nevertheless, on the horizon and in the laboratory are diagnostic and therapeutic techniques that will change medical practice and that represent a potentially important future for imaging scientists and physicians. The focus of the meeting was to consider how to prepare the imaging community at large for that future and to begin to examine some of the implications of MI in terms of education and intersociety relations.