Purpose Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic is challenging the availability of hospital resources worldwide. The Young Group of the Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine (AIMN) developed the first international survey to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 in nuclear medicine (NM). The aim of this study was to perform a preliminary report of the ongoing survey. Methods A questionnaire of thirty questions was prepared for all NM professionals addressing three main issues: (1) new scheduling praxes for NM diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, (2) assistance of patients with diagnosed or suspected COVID-19, and (3) prevention of COVID-19 spreading in the departments. An invitation to the survey was sent to the corresponding authors of NM scientific papers indexed in SCOPUS in 2019. Personal data were analysed per individual responder. Organisation data were evaluated per single department. Results Two-hundred and ninety-six individual responders from 220 departments were evaluated. Most of the responders were from Europe (199/296, 67%). Approximately, all departments already changed their scheduling praxes due to the pandemic (213/ 220, 97%). In most departments, scheduled diagnostic and therapeutic procedures were allowed but quantitatively reduced (112/ 220, 51%). A significant reduction of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures (more than 20%) affected 198/220 (90%) and 158/ 220 (72%) departments, respectively. Incidental COVID-19 signs in NM exams occurred in 106/220 departments (48%). Few departments were closed or shifted to assist patients with 16%). Most of the responders thought that pandemic would not permanently change the work of NM departments in the future (189/296, 64%). Conclusions According to this preliminary report of the first international survey, COVID-19 heavily impacted NM departments and professionals. New praxes for NM procedures, assistance, and prevention of COVID-19 have been applied during the pandemic.Keywords COVID-19 . Nuclear medicine . Survey This article is part of the Topical Collection on Infection and inflammation.

Meningiomas account for approximately 30% of all new diagnoses of intracranial masses. The 2016 World Health Organization’s (WHO) classification currently represents the clinical standard for meningioma’s grading and prognostic stratification. However, watchful waiting is frequently the chosen treatment option, although this means the absence of a certain histological diagnosis. Consequently, MRI (or less frequently CT) brain imaging currently represents the unique available tool to define diagnosis, grading, and treatment planning in many cases. Nonetheless, these neuroimaging modalities show some limitations, particularly in the evaluation of skull base lesions. The emerging evidence supporting the use of radiolabelled somatostatin receptor analogues (such as dota-peptides) to provide molecular imaging of meningiomas might at least partially overcome these limitations. Moreover, their potential therapeutic usage might enrich the current clinical offering for these patients. Starting from the strengths and weaknesses of structural and functional neuroimaging in meningiomas, in the present article we systematically reviewed the published studies regarding the use of radiolabelled dota-peptides in surgery and radiotherapy planning, in the restaging of treated patients, as well as in peptide-receptor radionuclide therapy of meningioma.

No abstract

In this confirmatory study, we tested if a calculation that included the non-uniformity of dose deposition through a voxel-based dosimetric variable Ψ was able to improve the dose–response agreement with respect to the mean absorbed dose D. We performed dosimetry with 99mTc-MAA SPECT/CT and 90Y-PET/CT in 86 patients treated 8 instead of 4 days after the reference date with 2.8 times more 90Y glass microspheres/GBq than in our previous study. The lesion-by-lesion response was assessed with the mRECIST method and with an experimental densitometric criterion. A total of 106 lesions were studied. Considering Ψ as a prognostic response marker, having no Ψ provided a significantly higher AUC than D. The correlation, t-test, and AUC values were statistically significant only with the densitometric method and only with post-therapy dosimetry. In comparison with our previous study, the dose–response correlation and AUC values were poorer (maximum r = 0.43, R2 = 0.14, maximal AUC = 0.71), and the efficacy at a high dose did not reach 100%. The expected advantages of voxel dosimetry were nullified by the correlation between any Ψ and D due to the limited image spatial resolution. The lower AUC and efficacy may be explained by the mega-clustering effect triggered by the higher number of microspheres/GBq injected on day 8.

Background Autologous anti‐CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T‐cell therapy is an effective treatment for approximately 40% of relapsed/refractory large B cell lymphomas (LBCL), and early identification of patients at risk for relapse or progression after CAR T‐cell therapy represents a clinical need. Methods The authors conducted a single‐center prospective study on 47 relapsed/refractory LBCL receiving CAR T‐cell therapy to evaluate the prognostic value of baseline and after infusion 18F‐fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET)‐computed tomography. Qualitative and quantitative metabolic parameters were evaluated before lymphodepletion, at day 30 and 90 post‐infusion. Results Deep variation of standardized uptake value (SUV)mean between baseline and day 30 correlated with response at day 90 (hazard ratio [HR], 1.49; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–2.2); p = .04) and better progression‐free survival (PFS) (HR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.41–0.97); p = .04). In the overall population, 1‐year PFS was 63% for Deauville score (DS)1–3 and 39% for DS4–5 patients, respectively (p = .02), however, the prognostic role of DS was lost when survivals are analyzed by considering 38 patients not progressing at 30 days. In these patients, in partial response or stable disease, the combination of DS and variation of SUVmean allowed identification of three groups with different prognosis: patients with DS1–3 and those with DS4–5 and decreased SUVmean had similar 1‐year PFS of 62% and 61%, whereas patients with DS4–5 and increased SUVmean had a poorer 1‐year PFS of 33% (p = .04). Conclusions PET parameters and association of DS and variation of SUVmean at 30 days could help in identify patients at high risk of CAR T‐cell failure. Lay summary This is a single‐center prospective study on 47 lymphoma patients receiving commercial chimeric antigen receptor T‐cell therapy aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of baseline and after infusion 18F‐fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. Among patients in partial remission or stable disease at day 30, the authors observed two subgroups with significantly different prognosis; patients with Deauville score (DS)4–5 and a concomitant reduction of standardized uptake value (SUV)mean had higher probability of long‐lasting response than those with DS4–5 and an increase of SUVmean.