Molecular Imaging Faces Challenges As It Moves Forward
The type of imaging that we use in medicine is changing as technologies advance. However, it always takes society a little bit of time to catch up to science so we aren't seeing the changes take place in real life yet even though they are occurring in the lab. For example, there is a lot of forward motion in research of molecular imaging and nuclear medicine but that research faces a lot of barriers that could prohibit it from being realized any time in the near future.
Molecular imaging is a great step forward in preventive health care and treatment of disease because it allows the doctor to offer more personalized advice to each patient. More individualized treatments can be created based on the information provided by imaging at this level. However, this requires that the technologies for doing this be allowed to be put into use which currently isn't the case.
Funding is one of the major reasons that this type of research hasn't gone as far as it could. Hesitancy by doctors and researchers to move into this controversial area is another reason. And the usual issues with FDA approval delays also block the progress of this area of medicine. Learn more about the details of this issue
here.
Question of the Day: Should we push molecular imaging forward as a society?photo link
