A pair of the top molecular imaging stories from the past month offered something resembling symmetry, with one touting the effectiveness of a radiopharmaceutical soon after it received regulatory approval, and the other confirming the benefits of PET scanning in Alzheimer’s patients just ahead of another important regulatory decision.

Cancer screening with amino acid PET has already been validated for adults, but it has now been deemed a powerful tool for tumor localization in children and young adults, according to a study published Sept. 19 in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

The American Board of Radiology Foundation (ABRF) and Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) today announce that Varian is awarding a $100,000 second year renewal grant to the ABRF, to continue its work establishing a national brachytherapy registry. The registry, which is the first such nationwide modality-based project in radiation oncology, is linked to the American Board of Radiology's (ABR's) Innovation Pathway in Maintenance of Certification (MOC) for Focused Practice Recognition of Brachytherapy.

Patients with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) who are diagnosed early with PET imaging receive medication earlier and have better clinical outcomes, according to interim results from the first study to confirm the benefits of early diagnosis in the neurodegenerative disease.

It is not uncommon for patients who’ve been diagnosed with cancer to feel stigmatized for behaviors that could have led to their disease, such as smoking or tanning.

When Baltimore Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center expanded its mammography screening program in 2008 to cater to a growing number of female veterans, the hope was that the interval from diagnosis to treatment would decrease. However, time to treatment actually grew longer with increased volumes in the post-intervention period.

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) today released a new study on pricing trends for implantable medical devices that shows average prices have declined significantly for major categories of implantable medical devices from 2007 through 2011."These average pricing declines reflect the intensely competitive marketplace for medical technology and underscore the tremendous value devices and diagnostics provide to patients and the overall health care system," said Stephen J. Ubl, president and CEO of AdvaMed.

Given Imaging Ltd, (NASDAQ: GIVN), a world leader in gastrointestinal medical devices and pioneer of capsule endoscopy, today announced that Japan's Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) has granted approval for the PillCam SB 3 system<http://youtu.be/IOk5tF3pUKQ>.  The innovative technology in this third-generation system will provide physicians throughout Japan, the world's second largest healthcare market, with the most advanced PillCam capsule endoscopy technology to detect and monitor small bowel diseases, such as Crohn's disease.