British Journal of Radiology 75 (2002),0VI © 2002 The British Institute of Radiology
Foreword
M N Maisey
Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine London
The British Institute of Radiology has education and science as two of its three main aims. The BIR President's Conference of 2001, from which this special issue of BJR is derived, reflected these two aims by bringing together clinicians and scientists working in the field of positron emission tomography (PET) to create an educational opportunity.
In the course of experimenting with a variety of processes to ease the transition from verbal presentation to the written word, an audio transcription was made of the conference and the first editing was undertaken by a number of people attending the meeting with knowledge of the subject matter, an experiment partially successful but one from which we learned a great deal, which will assist in future publishing projects of this type. I am grateful to Dr Sally Barrington, Dr Sharon Hain and Dr Ivan Ho Shon for their initial editorial work and to the speakers for their cooperation.
The material consists of a mixture of invited lectures, eponymous lectures and special contributions covering the field of PET from basic science through current "routine" clinical applications to future developments in therapy manufacturing and fusion of imaging modalities for direct clinical applications (PET/CT) and potential research applications (PET/MRS), and includes views on how the information revolution via the Internet could enhance these new imaging modalities for the benefit of patients.
This is a truly eclectic mixture of contributions from people experienced in research and clinical applications of PET from which I hope most readers will gain some new information and stimulation.
