Volume 44, Number 6

November 2014

Letter From the Editors

A

utopian view of modern humans is that they are all created equal. This is surely one of the most important concepts ever introduced into our cultural and social fabric. But we must keep in mind exactly that. This is a political statement that is spelled out in the Constitution of the United States and many other documents throughout the world. But we have made the mistake in the past of pursuing the practice of medicine and its teaching as if this ethical statement also is applicable to our physiology and susceptibility to disease. Of course, we recognize the obvious differences between men and women and various ethnic groups and races throughout the world, but this has only been at a very superficial level where these differences were so obvious that they could not be ignored. This has been especially true in imaging where we tend to look at an image as if the expression of disease in everyone was pretty much the same. This has especially been a disservice to instances where there are major differences in the appearance and course of disease between the sexes. The disparity has been so great that the National Institutes of Health have found it essential to create specific policies that force us to focus on the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.semnuclmed.2014.06.009 0001-2998/& 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

differences, recognize them, and clarify them to enhance diagnosis and therapy. This issue deals with the facts we need to be aware of while interpreting nuclear medicine studies in men and women and the difference that may be confusing or misleading. Drs Alazraki and Aarsvold1 have put together an informative and important issue on Nuclear Medicine in Women. Their editorial introduces the subject with great clarity. Our subscribers should review carefully each of the important subjects presented. We believe that this issue of the seminars is critical to our practice of nuclear medicine and should be studied carefully. M. Donald Blaufox, MD, PhD Leonard Freeman, MD

References 1. Alazraki NP, Aarsvold JN: Guest editorial. Semin Nucl Med 2014;44 (6):412

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Letter from the editors.

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