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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2015 | Volume
: 14
| Issue : 3 | Page : 143 |
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Not for the Last Time that I do Something for the First Time: A Time to Padhy!
Ajit S Shinto
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kovai Medical Center and Hospital, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
| Date of Web Publication | 20-Aug-2015 |
Correspondence Address:
Ajit S Shinto
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kovai Medical Center and Hospital, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
India
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DOI: 10.4103/1450-1147.163239 PMID: 26420982 
How to cite this article:
Shinto AS. Not for the Last Time that I do Something for the First Time: A Time to Padhy!. World J Nucl Med 2015;14:143 |
Fulfilling the Chinese prophecy, I truly believe that we nuclear medicine physicians live in interesting times.
Not many professions, especially among branches of medicine, allow you to dream and do new things often enough. As I write this editiorial, it brings forth mixed emotions: A sense of loss, which is yet overcome by an all-perversive vitality just to think of our late Dr. Padhy and his penetrative question " When was the last time you did something for the first time."Thus, it could be considered apt that this piece is dedicated to a series of firsts in our collective journey.
It was due to a giant leap of faith and the inevitable charisma of Dr. Padhy that there was a rebirth of the Rhenium-188 (Re-188) Lipiodol-based transarterial radioembolization (TARE) procedure after a hiatus of more than 10 years; that too in a quaint city called Coimbatore in India. It was immensely satisfying to use this product, especially when it was prepared inhouse and injected into our patients for the first time. Ever since, it has continued to benefit scores of patients in a cost-effective and affordable manner, when before we had no other viable options.
As the project was going well with enviable results, it was the endeavor of all of us from the World Association Of Radionuclide And Molecular Therapy (WARMTH) to see this niche therapy be made available to more centers and thus take Dr. Padhy's dream a step closer to realization. Thus was born the first concerted effort toward enabling more centers to perform Re-188 Lipiodol therapy: The WARMTH Rhenium Project.
However, the Re-188 generators were relatively expensive, and we needed to diversify by branching out from treating only liver cancer to other therapies too, to attain financial viability. Hence, in collaboration with leading scientists and radiochemists, a programme for Re-188-based skeletal pain palliation and radiosynovectomy was also started for the first time, again with immensely satisfying results.
Recognizing the versatility of this generator-produced therapeutic radionuclide, it was thought that there should be a single platform where all the doctors, scientists, technologists, and chemists could interact, exchange knowledge, and teach new centers to perform these Re-188-based therapies. Thus, the idea of the very first World Rhenium Conference was born, and to be held, not surprisingly, in Coimbatore in India during September 11-13.
With so much happening in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, we are uniquely placed to discover newer methods and targets for therapy, utilizing the concept of theranostics at its fullest.
If our minds are open, arms are willing, and hearts beat in unison, it is my belief that we could be "Padhied" into doing great things together.
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