26th – 29th April, Manchester Central

By the time the fraternity read this it is likely that, with the exception of those lucky or talented enough to win a prize, the 37th Annual meeting will be a dim memory. This year I thought the educational content of the meeting was superb: Many thanks and congratulations to the scientific committee particularly Rak Ganatra and Alan Perkins.

The meeting began on Sunday with a PET/CT session organised by Philips/IBA and the BNMS Professor Ell kicked off with a very interesting review of non FDG tracers in cardiac PET. There followed other notable speakers including Jane Mackewn from Guys and St Thomas’ who, in her review of PET Imaging, Radiochemisty & Physics, managed to explain randoms, scatters and attenuation in a comprehensible fashion.

On Monday morning, the cardiac education sessions from Drs Groves, Woldman, Harbinson and Mittal provided more insight into Rb-82 myocardial perfusion imaging /CTA, Heart failure/ejection fraction, the intricacies/myths of DVLA licensing and cardiac CT perfusion. The day closed with GE’s PET/CT Head & Neck session. This started with a very useful review from Mr Jarrod Homer, an ENT surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Tuesday began with a well presented and highly informative review of Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT) from Dr Szyszko, the PET clinical fellow at St Thomas’ . Overlapping schedules meant that one had to choose either or the equally good cerebral perfusion & metabolic Imaging review from Dr Bradley of John Radcliffe hospital.

The BNMS annual lecture given by Professor Hoefnagel from Amsterdam managed to include current practice and new developments in therapy within an hour delivered in a manner which remained interesting and informative throughout. Quite a skill.

In the afternoon Dr Hutton gave a presentation in the technicians section about the IAEA learning package for PET/CT & SPECT/CT. A pilot is to be run under the auspices of BNMS, forms were available for volunteers for the pilot on the BNMS stand and I hope sufficient numbers will be supported by their departments and come forward.

Tuesday evening brought those who weren’t Manchester City fans to Old Trafford for the annual dinner. I think everyone had a good evening, the disco at the end was an eye opener; dancing prizes had they been available would surely have gone to Mr DG Somapala, a radiographer from East Surrey who couldn’t wait to hit the floor, Dr Gill Vivien, our beloved leader and Dr Manish Pandit from Birmingham.

Wednesday saw Dr Ballinger from Guys educate us about imaging hypoxia in tumours. Again overlapping session times meant difficult choices and I zoomed over to the exchange auditorium to hear Dr Peters speak about lymphoedema imaging. What an excellent presentation.

The final invited review by Professor Kumar from Westmead hospital in Australia on diagnostic and therapeutic roles for radiolabelled glucosamine in the management of inflammatory arthritis turned out to be fascinating. Professor Baum from Bad Berka gave the final talk on new perspectives in Nuclear medicine leaving us to ponder whether Ga-68 will become the Tc-99m of PET/CT.

It was a really good meeting sending out very positive messages for the future of Nuclear medicine and we were lucky to have so many home based experts to give us their pearls of wisdom. Harrogate next year guys!

Notes from a review written by Jackie James.