Minutes of the Organizing Committee MEDAMI 2024 Meeting

Date: Friday, June 14, 2024, 17:00-18:00 CEST
Place: Online
Present: John Prior, Harry Tsoumpas, Paul Lecoq, Peter Križan, Roger Lecomte, Stan Majewski, Nicola Belcari, Rok Pestotnik
Website: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1290221/

Nicola Belcari’s Report:

• Workshop Conclusion: The MEDAMI 2024 workshop was successful.
• Final Budget: This will be available in a few days.
• Participation: 40 participants, 6 student grants awarded, and fees waived for some medical doctors.
• Speaker Coverage: Attendance costs for Ora Israel and Gudje are fully covered.
• Feedback: Positive feedback was received from a mixed audience of medical doctors and technical experts.
• Challenges: Increasing doctor involvement beyond giving talks remains difficult. Weekend scheduling was beneficial.

Key Points Discussed at the IAC meeting:

• Audience Involvement: How to increase participation and involvement of medical doctors.
• Session Content: Broad spectrum of medical topics with a balance between SPECT and PET talks.
• Learnings from Medical Doctors: Need for more radiotracers; existing technology devices are sufficient.
• PET Imaging: Limited to FDG radiotracer from a clinical perspective.
• Interdisciplinary Communication: We must establish a common language between medical doctors and technologists.
• Preference for SPECT: Due to its use with more tracers.
• Gut-Brain Connection: Emphasized by Paul Lecoq, requires a long axial field of view scanners.
• AI Limitations: AI not an answer to everything; recent studies showed AI increases false positive lesions.

Positive Feedback:

• Interaction with attendees was valuable.

Organization Notes:

• Attempt to organize two conferences sequentially.
• Proposal for a single communication channel for several conferences.

Possible Future Conference Topics:

Paul suggested in 2026 to address the issue of global dissemination of nuclear medicine. 

Stan's suggestion for the title: "The strategy to lower global barriers to dissemination of nuclear medicine imaging using frugal innovation in development of new imaging apparatus and in radiopharmaceutical production and distribution".

Topics:

• Strategies for addressing the healthcare gap (2/3 population without access to technology).
• Cost of infrastructure and personnel training.
• Time of Flight information and its potential for a radiotracer production network.
• New cyclotron technologies and making radioisotopes accessible in low-income countries.
• Positive economic effects of medical imaging, especially in low-income countries (1 to 150 USD ratio).

WHO Resolution on the Access of low-income countries to medical imaging:

• Expected next year, focusing on spreading essential medical imaging and equipment.
• Emphasis on accessible technologies like Ultrasound, SPECT, and PET.
• Need for support from WHO Executive Board members (list available here). Your help would be appreciated.
• Resolution feedback is expected in three years.

Additional Suggestions:

• Authors to provide access to their presentations on the MEDAMI website for conference attendees.
• Publication of conference materials in a Frontiers journal: History of MEDAMI, book of abstracts, editorial statements by John Prior & Olivier, contributed talks, and a three-page medical summary.

Report from SNMI Conference:

• Ora Israel received a lifetime award and attended MEDAMI.

Meeting Adjourned at 18:00 CEST.

The next meeting in the fall of 2024 will be held together with the foreseen organisers from Valencia