Nuclear Medicine/PET Center

| Nuclear Medicine/PET Center |--------------

The Nuclear Medicine Department of Huashan Hospital was originally called the Isotope Room. It was established in 1959, renamed the Nuclear Medicine Department in 1984, and introduced SPECT in 1988. From 1984 to 2000, Professor Lin Xiangtong served as director of the Nuclear Medicine Department; Professor Liu Yongchang and Professor Liu Xingdang subsequently led its work. From 2003 to 2015, Liu Xingdang served as deputy director and led the department, and from 2015 to 2022 he served as director.

In 1996, Professor Lin Xiangtong took the lead and, after approval and reporting by the hospital to the Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau, PET, cyclotrons, and other equipment were introduced in 1997 as part of the first batch of projects approved by the former Ministry of Health (the first in Shanghai). The first whole-body 18F-FDG PET examination was completed in December 1998. The Huashan Hospital PET Center was formally established in November 1999, with Xu Zhensheng responsible for management and Liu Yongchang responsible for medical work until April 2001. Xu Zhensheng served as director of the PET Center from 2005 to 2016, and Guan Yihui served as director from 2016 to 2022.

In 2022, with the hospital’s support, the Nuclear Medicine Department and PET Center were merged to better integrate disciplinary resources. Guan Yihui has served as director of the Nuclear Medicine/PET Center ever since.

This department is part of the Ministry of Education’s key discipline of Imaging Medicine and Nuclear Medicine (a second-level discipline); the fourth batch of nuclear medicine doctoral programs approved by the Degree Office of the State Council (1989); the 2013 key specialty of imaging medicine-nuclear medicine of the National Health and Family Planning Commission; the supporting institution of the Shanghai Nuclear Medicine Quality Control Center (1999–present); an institution qualified by the SFDA for clinical pharmacology trials of radiopharmaceuticals (1996); and a trial base for osteoporosis diagnosis and quality-control standards of the Ministry of Health Medical Service Standardization Committee. It was one of the first institutions to obtain a national Class IV radioactive drug use license and was also the first medical institution in China to obtain a GMP certificate.

| Distinctive Features |--------------

The Nuclear Medicine specialty is comprehensive, with imaging diagnosis, radionuclide therapy, bone mineral density measurement, and breath testing. Distinctive subspecialty groups have been formed in neurology, oncology, radionuclide therapy, and molecular imaging agents. The department currently has three PET/CT scanners, one PET/MR scanner, two SPECT/CT scanners, one small-animal PET/CT scanner, two cyclotrons, two bone densitometers, and other equipment. It was among the first in China to perform multi-tracer PET imaging for Parkinson’s disease, brain tumors, Alzheimer disease, psychiatric disorders, congenital hyperinsulinemia, and other conditions, and established China’s first dedicated nuclear medicine disease database and quantitative software for neuropsychiatric disorders. More than 70 positron tracers have now been developed for clinical and research use, reaching an internationally advanced level. The small-animal PET research platform is also used to accelerate the clinical translation of new positron tracers.

| Teaching |--------------

From 2002 to 2024, the department continuously held more than 20 national continuing-education programs, including 11 sessions of the PET/CT Clinical Application Physician Training Course and nine sessions of Research Progress in PET Imaging of Neuropsychiatric Diseases. It created the Huashan Molecular Imaging Forum brand. Hundreds of trainees from PET centers across China have attended further training. Since 2010, the department has participated in training for the Shanghai standardized residency training imaging base (nuclear medicine); since 2020, it has undertaken training for the Shanghai standardized residency training nuclear medicine specialty base. It also undertakes doctoral and master’s education at Fudan University, as well as lectures and demonstration teaching in the theoretical courses of imaging medicine and nuclear medicine for the eight-year and undergraduate programs of Shanghai Medical College.

| Research Overview |--------------

Over the past five years, the department has undertaken more than 30 provincial/ministerial- and national-level research projects, including a major project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China led by Professor Tian Mei, China–U.S. cooperative projects, a Ministry of Science and Technology Science and Technology Innovation 2030 key project for young scientists, and Shanghai key projects. It has also participated in several key NSFC projects and major Ministry of Science and Technology projects. More than 200 papers have been published by first or corresponding authors, including over 150 SCI-indexed articles in journals such as Nat Commun, Radiology, NPJ Digit Med, Brain, EBioMedicine, Eur Urol, Clin Cancer Res, Mol Psychiatry, Alzheimers Dement, JNM, and EJNMMI. Related achievements have been reviewed and discussed by renowned experts in China and abroad. Department members have obtained five patents as first inventors.

Many members have been elected deputy chairs, committee members, council members, and other officers of national, provincial, and municipal societies, including the Chinese Medical Association, Chinese Society of Nuclear Medicine, Chinese Medical Doctor Association, Chinese Nuclear Society, Chinese Pharmaceutical Association, and Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine. One member is chair of the Nuclear Medicine Branch of the Shanghai Society of Biomedical Engineering, and one is deputy chair of the Medical Imaging Center Branch of the Chinese Hospital Association. One member is deputy editor-in-chief of Alzheimers Dement and J Alzheimers Dis, and two are editorial-board members of EJNMMI. Members have attended and delivered invited or oral presentations at the Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (EANM), the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Annual Meeting (SNMMI), the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), and the National Nuclear Medicine Annual Conference to share research results.

| Department Honors |--------------

The department has received the honorary title of National Outstanding Scientific and Technological Worker (one person). For many consecutive years, it has been recognized as an advanced collective and advanced branch of Huashan Hospital and has received the Shanghai health system World Expo Service Brand Award, among other honors.