Nuclear Medicine

The Department of Nuclear Medicine of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University was established in 1987. It is a comprehensive department integrating medical care, teaching, and research. It has currently developed a work model in which oncologic nuclear medicine, cardiac nuclear medicine, and neurological nuclear medicine advance in parallel. It is an authorized master's and doctoral degree-conferring site and postdoctoral research station for Imaging Medicine and Nuclear Medicine at Shandong University, an undergraduate teaching unit of Shandong University, and a standardized residency training assessment and training base for nuclear medicine in Shandong Province. The department's work is centered on routine clinical nuclear medicine services such as PET/CT and SPECT(/CT) imaging, supported primarily by the preparation and research and development of radiopharmaceuticals. The department's quality-control team provides assurance for diagnostic quality control, image quality control, nursing quality control, and the operation of hardware and equipment, forming a benign, multi-dimensional integrated development model. The goal of the Department of Nuclear Medicine is to build an all-purpose department integrating advanced molecular imaging equipment (such as PET/CT), conventional nuclear medicine examination equipment (such as SPECT and SPECT/CT), radiopharmaceutical production equipment (such as cyclotrons and chemical synthesizers), and a ward for radionuclide therapy, striving to achieve complete hardware, sufficient personnel, rational division of labor, sound management, and sustainable development, and to become an important force in helping our hospital establish a National Regional Medical Center. At present, the department's principal diagnostic and therapeutic equipment includes: one INTEVO 16 dual-detector SPECT(/CT) system from Siemens, Germany, and one MILLENIUM VG dual-detector SPECT(/CT) system from General Electric, USA, both among the world's most advanced; one DISCOVERY STE positron emission tomography PET/CT system from General Electric, USA; a MINITRACE cyclotron and TRACER LAB synthesis module from General Electric, USA; a PET-MS-II synthesis module from Beijing Paiter; and the capability to produce commonly used clinical radiopharmaceuticals, including the labeled radiopharmaceuticals 18F-FDG, 11C-choline, F18-PSMA, and F18-DOPA.

PET/CT imaging is mainly used for the early diagnosis, staging, restaging after treatment, and evaluation of treatment efficacy of common tumors such as lung cancer, gastrointestinal tumors, lymphoma, and melanoma, as well as for delineation of biological target volumes for radiotherapy, myocardial metabolism imaging (the gold standard for evaluating myocardial viability), brain metabolism imaging, and other examinations. It is currently an advanced molecular imaging diagnostic technique worldwide. SPECT/CT can perform various examinations, including whole-body bone scans, dynamic renal imaging and GFR measurement, thyroid imaging, myocardial perfusion imaging, parathyroid imaging, and gastric emptying imaging, and is an indispensable auxiliary diagnostic and therapeutic tool in clinical practice. The Department of Nuclear Medicine is not limited to the clinical application of 18F-FDG PET/CT; it actively carries out the research, development, and imaging applications of other positron-emitting tracers to compensate for the limitations and deficiencies of the single tracer 18F-FDG. The applications of 18F-PSMA in the early diagnosis, clinical staging, postoperative detection, and treatment-efficacy evaluation of patients with prostate cancer; of 18F-DOPA in endocrine tumors and Parkinson-related diseases; of 18F-octreotide in endocrine tumors; and of 18F-PAPI and 11C-choline in tumors are all the first of their kind in Shandong Province and are at the domestic leading level. The application of multiple imaging agents also indicates that the Department of Nuclear Medicine has moved from imaging of single-agent glucose metabolism with 18F-FDG toward research on imaging with multiple tumor-specific PET molecular probes, expanding the future of molecular imaging in nuclear medicine. While carrying out basic clinical work, the Department of Nuclear Medicine places emphasis on clinical scientific research and has undertaken numerous research projects, including those funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and key research and development programs of Shandong Province, and has received multiple Shandong Provincial Science and Technology Progress Awards.