Close interdisciplinary cooperation between medical staff is key to improved patient outcomes, concluded participants of the International Conference on Integrated Medical Imaging in Cardiovascular Diseases (IMIC 2016), which ended at the IAEA on Friday.
“Good science is absolutely necessary but in isolation not sufficient for effective treatment,” said Diana Paez, Head of the Nuclear Medicine and Diagnostic Imaging Section at the IAEA and the scientific secretary of the conference. “Effective cooperation and soft skills make a difference.”
Through medical imaging, nuclear medicine physicians use nuclear techniques to collect patient data, such as the state or distribution of a disease. This information is critical for doctors. Having nuclear medicine physicians working alongside radiologists, cardiologists, medical physicists and radiopharmacists can therefore greatly improve the treatment and diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, Paez said.
Incidence of cardiovascular diseases is on the rise around the world, killing at least 17 million people each year. But premature deaths can often be avoided through lifestyle changes, preventive measures and with the timely use of diagnostic imaging tools. The effective inclusion of these tools into overall efforts is crucial to the success of early diagnosis, prevention and eventually treatment, Paez said.
