The causes of the difficult-to-treat pain syndrome fibromyalgia are largely unknown. Using PET brain imaging, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Harvard University have now shown that glial cells—the central nervous system’s immune cells—are activated in the brains of patients with fibromyalgia. The finding opens the way for new therapies. Read more.

Accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease may be difficult in most patients, as similar symptoms can be seen in several other disease conditions as well. Researchers have developed a new brain imaging method that can show the exact presence and distribution of the tau protein depositions in the brain of a persons with Alzheimer’s disease. These tau protein deposits are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. Read more.

A Pasadena technology startup has launched a novel radiolabeling platform that aims to unlock the full power of positron emission tomography (PET), a functional imaging technique in nuclear medicine that is used to observe metabolic processes in the body as an aid to the diagnosis of disease. Read more.

PET imaging is a common tool to establish the stage of a patient’s prostate cancer, but new research raises questions about its association with misdiagnosis and unnecessary changes in therapies. Benign tissues in the kidney, bowels and salivary glands may show increased prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) expression, prompting experts to caution against relying solely on PSMA PET.

“It is important that nuclear medicine physicians be aware of this pitfall, as the interpretation of PSMA PET scans may have a substantial impact on therapy guidance,” said Christoph Rischpler, MD, of Germany’s Technical University in Munich. Read more.