Improving patient care takes center stage at medical summit

Experts in molecular imaging meet to advance new ideas on diagnosis and treatment of cancer, alzheimer’s and heart disease

Published: 03/03

Reston, VA, USA - (HealthTech Wire) - Key strategies to translate innovations in molecular imaging and therapy into improved patient care dominated a recent colloquy of medical experts at the SNM Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence's second annual industry–expert summit "Molecular Imaging: The Future of Modern Medicine."

"Molecular imaging will lead to personalized medicine and improved patient outcomes," said SNM President Alexander J. McEwan, M.D. "To be successful, it will require focused and collaborative research to ensure that the full range of improvements in patient care can be realized. These will include enhanced detection and treatment of a variety of deadly and debilitating diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer's and heart disease," added McEwan, who represents more than 16,000 molecular imaging professionals.

"The plans developed at this summit address crucial issues facing the field. We are going to incorporate the input from this diverse group of experts into the strategic plan of our Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence," added Peter Conti, M.D., Ph.D., who chaired the meeting held Feb. 17–19, 2008, in Newport Beach, Calif.

More than 90 researchers, physicians, industry experts, and government representatives attended the summit and contributed to the development of many key recommendations in areas critical to advancing the field of molecular imaging, such as strategies to engage and partner with the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, ways to increase utilization of molecular imaging and therapy, strategies for fast-tracking technological and new tracer development, standardization and clinical trials for biomarker validation, and increasing awareness of the pioneering advances of molecular imaging and therapy.

Guest speakers included journalist Jonathan Alter from Newsweek; Nancy Januszewski from the Lymphoma Research Foundation; Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D., president of the Alliance for NanoHealth in Houston, Texas; Scott Gottlieb, MD, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and 27 other leading experts.