Principles and Applications of Nuclear Medical Imaging: A Survey on Recent Developments

The main difference between nuclear imaging and other radiologic tests is that nuclear imaging assesses how organs function, whereas other imaging methods assess anatomy, or how the organs look. The advantage of assessing the function of an organ is that it helps physicians make a diagnosis and plan present or future treatments for the part of the body being evaluated. Fast improvements in engineering and computing technologies have made it possible to acquire high-resolution multidimensional nuclear images of complex organs to analyze structural and functional information of human physiology for computer-assisted diagnosis, treatment evaluation, and intervention. Technological inventions and develop‐ ments have created new possibilities and breakthroughs in nuclear medical diagnostics. The classic example is the discovery of Anger, fifty six years ago. The application and commer‐ cial success of new nuclear imaging methods depends mainly on three primary factors: sensitivity, specificity and cost effectiveness. The first two determine the added clinical value, in comparison with existing medical imaging methods. Nowadays, much greater impor‐ tance is attached to cost effectiveness than in the past. This also holds true for diagnostic equipment where, for example, one of the consequences is that price erosion will occur where the functionality of an instrument is not open to further development. Cost effectiveness is enhanced by more efficient data handling in the hospitals, which has become possible through the digitization of diagnostic information. The inevitable integration of medical data also offers other new possibilities, such as the use of pre-operatively acquired images during surgical procedures.