Hell J Nucl Med
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The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the biggest shock in decades to the well developed healthcare system and resources worldwide. Although there was a wide variation in the level of preparedness, the transition was tough even for the most renowned healthcare systems. Increasing the capacity and adapting healthcare for the needs of COVID-19 patients is described by the WHO as a fundamental outbreak response measure. ⋯ Recently the ASNC, SNMMI, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), issued an information statement which describes a careful approach to reestablishment of non-emergent care in nuclear cardiology laboratories reflecting diverse settings from the United States and worldwide. In the same spirit it is also the reintroduction guidance issued by North American Cardiovascular Societies. In this paper we provide a synopsis of the basic steps of adapting nuclear cardiology practice in the era of COVID-19 in order to balance between the risk of viral transmission while also providing crucial cardiovascular assessments for our patients.
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The outbreak and spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic have affected billions of people around the world, severely disrupting many aspects of their lives. Although not at the frontline of the pandemic response, Nuclear Medicine departments have to adopt their clinical routine to the new environment. A series of protective measures, including among others spatial arrangements to promote social distancing, meticulous hand hygiene and use of personal protective equipment, workload reduction, patient screening at admission and examination protocol adjustments, have to be adopted in order to minimize the risk of spreading the infection and ensure the safety of both their patients and staff. As the pandemic seems to slowly recede, the valuable experience gained should help everyone be much better prepared for a possible new outbreak.
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On December 29, 2019, a hospital in the City of Wuhan, Hubei Province, in Central China, admitted four individuals with pneumonia. The hospital reported this occurrence to the local center for disease control (CDC), which lead Wuhan CDC staff to initiate a field investigation with a retrospective search for pneumonia patients. On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was alerted by the Chinese authorities for several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in the City of Wuhan. ⋯ So far, COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way people live and work globally, and has resulted in extreme strain on the healthcare systems worldwide. Most of the nuclear medicine studies are performed on an out-patient basis. Therefore, without effective implementation of the required preventive measures, there is a significant risk for viral transmission when visiting nuclear medicine departments, particularly in periods of high community spread.
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The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed people's normal lives in a very short time causing extensive infections and mortality, which required the national health systems to be adapted to new situation. Changes in healthcare services included modifications of standard procedures in nuclear medicine departments in order to limit COVID-19 spreading and protect patients and personnel. Here, we recommend management of patients with neurological diseases and especially dementia and movement disorders, who are referred for neuroimaging with nuclear medicine techniques.
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Nearly 19.9 million cases and more than 730 thousand disease-related deaths have been confirmed in the months that followed WHO's assessment that the novel coronavirus COVID-19, first emerged in Wuhan China on December 2019, could be characterized as a pandemic. The aforementioned coronavirus affected 188 countries as of 8.10.2020. Despite the continually increasing number of COVID-19 cases reported to CDC, at national level, the percentage of visits to outpatient providers and emergency departments has decreased and mortality rates attributed to COVID-19 have declined compared to the previous weeks, still above the baseline. ⋯ This way, health systems will be equipped with better and faster protocols and best practices in order to manage efficiently any other pandemic that might emerge in the future. In this context, Nuclear Medicine departments should reconsider and update their practices, by altering routines and workflows in order to comply with the new sanitary standards, triaging their appointments, or introducing new diagnostic methods like Tele-Medicine / Tele Nuclear Medicine and Artificial Intelligence applications. This special edition of Hellenic Journal of Nuclear Medicine has as its main purpose to introduce and communicate those new practices and protocols/standard operating procedures, in order for the scientific community, health public institutions, affected individuals and their families to be duly informed.