PET President's Message

President’s Report
Hossein Jadvar, MD, PhD, MPH, MBA, FACNM

PET CoE President

The SNMMI PET Center of Excellence (PET CoE) has many moving parts; its many task forces and working groups aim to advance the utilization of PET by addressing education needs, reimbursement issues, credentialing and more. Under the leadership of these task forces, the center has had a productive year in developing materials and engaging in fruitful discussions on these topics.

An ongoing project of the PET CoE is the creation of a tracer encyclopedia. In this collection, detailed information regarding various PET tracers and their properties are displayed in easy-to-read charts. Currently, guides are available for F-18 NaF, F-18 FDOPA,  F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose, N-13 ammonia, F-18 fluorocholine, F-18 fluorothymidine, F-18 flurpiridaz and F-18 florbetapir. Under the direction of the Tracer Encyclopedia Task Force led by Bennett Greenspan, MD, additional new tracer grids on C-11 PIB, C-11 choline and F-18 flutemetamol are also in the process of being developed.

The Technologist Working Group, chaired by Ruth Tesar, CNMT, continues to make progress in the creation of technologist-specific information to be included on the PET PROS section of the new SNMMI website. This new section will complement the current information available in PET PROS for referring physicians, patients and advocates and will be a valued addition for PET CoE technologist members and others.

The PET CoE also created two new Task Forces, Guidelines and Appropriate Use Criteria Task Force, co-chaired by Ryan Niederkohr, MD and Katherine Zukotynski, MD, that replaced the previous successfully completed Quality and Reporting Task Force (also co-chaired by Ryan Niederkohr, MD and Katherine Zukotynski, MD), and the Treatment Response Using PET Task Force, co-chaired by John O. Prior, MD, PhD and Hubert J. Vesselle, MD, PhD.  We look forward to the results that will be generated from the work of these two new task forces.  

The PET/MR Roadmap Task Force, led by Andrei Iagaru, MD, and Ryan Niederkohr, MD, continue their work with providing timely educational opportunities for this new hybrid imaging modality.  In addition to this task force, the Center is collaborating with the American College of Radiology (ACR) in a joint working group, co-chaired by me as a representative of SNMMI and Rathan Subramaniam, MD, PhD, MPH, as an ACR representative to discuss a credentialing statement for Brain PET/MR.  The group has completed their initial draft document which was provisionally approved by the SNMMI Board of Directors in April 2014.  The final document will soon be prepared and submitted for final approval by the ACR and SNMMI leadership before submission to JNM and JACR for publication and dissemination. 

Finally, the Center recently published an editorial in the JNM on the ASCO’s recent “Choosing Wisely” comment on the use of PE/CT in recurrent cancer surveillance (http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/55/5/699) . We welcome thoughts from all PET CoE members on how we can advance the development and utilization of PET and PET/CT in the detection and management of disease. I encourage all members to consider getting involved with the PET CoE. Volunteering for a task force or working group can benefit your career and allows you to play a tangible role in the advancement of PET in clinical practice.