The “White paper of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) on multimodality imaging”: a message from the EANM and ESR Presidents

Excerpt

While nuclear medicine is growing, new areas emerge where relations with other medical specialties are necessary to deliver appropriate patient care. Cardiovascular nuclear medicine in the recent past, and now multimodality imaging provide clear examples. Fused and hybrid imaging with SPECT/CT, PET/CT, and other modalities represent an area of very rapid growth with important professional implications. In 2005, the executive committee of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) started formal contacts with the leadership of the European Society of Radiology (ESR) to discuss areas of common interest, to define forms of potential cooperation, and to advance multimodality imaging in medicine. In particular, both associations recognised the importance of coordinating working practices for such imaging systems and that undertaking the nuclear medicine and radiology components of imaging with hybrid systems requires different skills. To properly address this important issue, a strategy committee was called to give advice to the executive committee on how to develop the relations with the ESR. At the same time, the EANM executive committee gathered advice from national delegates and experts. Following the first contacts between the leadership of both societies at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) 2005 in Vienna, an EANM/ESR joint ad hoc committee was formed, comprising the president, the president elect and the president of the UEMS section of each society. This committee had a series of meetings to discuss training, accreditation and professional issues, and to plan educational activities. In the meantime, joint sessions during the EANM and ECR congresses have been initiated to highlight the clinical value of SPECT/CT and PET/CT in comparison with other existing imaging modalities. …