Introduction V4N1 – Covid19 pandemic

Dr. Lamoureux and I are pleased to introduce the new version of your acclaimed ePatient magazine.
Who would have thought a year ago that there would be three articles on virus in a dedicated nuclear medicine magazine?

This past ten month have been quite challenging for the entire globe population around the globe. Ass off today October 26, 2020 more than 42 million cases have tested positive for covid-19 and more than 1 million people have died of complications of the infection by the virus. The Covid -19 pandemic has generated major challenges at all level of the health care system. Nuclear Medicine practices have not been spared. In this issue, Dr. Lamoureux describe the evil intentions of viruses and how it can seriously affect humans and the humanity with his notorious story telling gift. Dr. Zuckier from New York details the strategies and processes that have been placed in his medical center to mitigate the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on nuclear medicine practice. In his article, Dr. Blais describes the importance and contribution of telemedicine and tele-imaging to continue providing high level services to patients.

The other major topic in this issue relates to what I believe is part of what I call Cardiac Theranostics. Tc-99m labeled pyrophosphate is neither a strange or new molecule. Pyrophosphate is a ubiquitous metabolic byproduct of many intracellular processes found in most cells, and it also can be produced extracellularly. Pyrophosphate acts as a potent inhibitor of calcification; it antagonizes the ability of inorganic phosphate to crystallize with calcium to form hydroxyapatite, by occupying some of the inorganic phosphate sites on the surface of nascent growing hydroxyapatite crystals. Once used to diagnose myocardial infarction, technetium-99m pyrophosphate (Tc 99m PYP) imaging is now reborn as an alternative to biopsy for diagnosing cardiac transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis in some patients.

In their article, Drs. Blair and Taillefer describe and illustrate the significant contribution of nuclear medicine in the diagnosis of cardiac amyloid disease.We sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading these contributions and the other articles published in this is issue of your ePatient magazine. Please take the time to share with us your comments to help improving the content and format of the magazine.

Stay Safe