Programs like this are a perfect example of the benefits of academic medicine, says Philip Templeton, M.D., chairman of Diagnostic Radiology and professor of radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. We offer patients the expertise of physicians and researchers in different specialties under one roof, and we can do it with the most modern equipment and highest degree of safety. Dr. Holder says, There are no completely routine examinations performed in our department. Every patient seen in nuclear medicine is treated as a special individual with a unique problem requiring a specially designed examination in full consultation with the patient s physician. The Medical Center earlier this year began converting to a filmless X-ray environment, storing all patient images by using computer technology.
Images are currently available throughout the hospital to physicians.
Referring physicians soon will be able to access nuclear medicine images from their community offices via the Internet with a special code. This allows referring physicians in their own offices to participate with us in the diagnosis of their patients, says Dr. Holder. As part of the collaboration with corporate partner, SMV, University of Maryland physicians will evaluate the new generation of gamma cameras and the latest emerging nuclear medicine technologies. Among the department s research interests are using the new equipment for coincidence detection imaging in the staging of cancer and the application of attenuation correction, a technique to make individual diagnoses more precise by compensating for anatomical differences from one patient to another. The department also is launching clinical trials of new imaging drugs that may help in the diagnosis and treatment of colon cancer and in the more accurate diagnosis of blood clots in the lungs and legs.