As part of human health projects of the IAEA/RCA, a Regional Training Course (RTC) on “PET Application for Oncologists, Radiation Oncologists and Hematologists” will be held in Chiba, Japan in 13-17 November 2006 in cooperation with the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS).

The purpose of this course is to train oncologists from RCA Member States in PET (Positron Emission Tomography) applications for clinical management of cancer patients with lung cancer, breast cancer and malignant lymphoma. Since in Asia, lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer mortality among men, and breast cancer the most common cause in women, the RCA projects have been arranged focusing on the improvement of clinical management of patients with lung cancer and breast cancer in addition to malignant lymphoma, by strengthening nuclear oncology.

Nuclear oncology has currently three important roles for the clinical management of cancer patients: 1) Staging, 2) Evaluating viability of primary lesion, and 3) Monitoring therapeutic efficacy. To introduce and develop PET imaging, the cooperation of oncologists is one of the major requirements. Therefore clinical management of cancer patients should be performed by a comprehensive team consisting of nuclear medicine physicians, oncologists, radiation oncologists, hematologists and co-medical workers with close, mutual communication.

The current project provides RCA MSs with the opportunity to learn about the important role of PET imaging for clinical management of cancer patients.
For further information, contact Dr. Shuji Tanada at tanada@nirs.go.jp or fax: +81 43 251 7147.