"Great Growth": A Review of Nuclear Medicine Studies Most Commonly Performed For The Interventional Radiologist

Purpose: Interventional radiologists need to interpret the results of nuclear medicine studies correctly to plan and perform procedures. Interventional Radiologists often collaborate with nuclear medicine specialists to provide comprehensive patient care. Understanding nuclear medicine studies can help IRs communicate more effectively with their colleagues and contribute to better patient outcomes. By understanding nuclear medicine studies, IRs can use this information to make more informed decisions about treatment for their patients.

Methods/Materials: Collaboration between nuclear medicine and interventional radiology has increased in recent years for both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. It remains important that interventional radiologists remain familiar with the performance and diagnosis of nuclear medicine procedures to understand and help guide interventional radiology procedures.

Results: Findings/procedure details: A variety of nuclear medicine procedures are routinely reviewed by interventional radiologists in collaboration with nuclear medicine specialists. Studies include PET/CT, MAA/Y90 Studies, SPECT/CT Imaging Studies, Bone and Renal Studies, etc. We describe utilizing the process of lifelong learning providing lectures and joint reviews to keep interventional radiologists on top of state of the art performance and interpretation of nuclear medicine studies.

Conclusions: The collaboration between nuclear medicine and interventional radiology continues to grow with utilization of new radioactive materials and procedures. Understanding and teaching nuclear medicine studies used in interventional radiology would involve providing a comprehensive overview of the different types of nuclear studies and their applications in interventional radiology. A review of different types of radiopharmaceuticals and variety of clinical case studies would also be important components of the curriculum.