The Institute of Nuclear Medicine (INM) is one the oldest Nuclear Medicine Departments worldwide, and the largest of its kind in Europe.

INM has a long history of working with various organisations and bodies to further the use of radionuclide diagnostics and therapies. In the 1980’s INM worked extensively with what was then Amersham plc in the development of Ceretec (Tc99m HMPAO), which is still used for the localisation of the seizure onset zone in patients with intractable epilepsy¹.

Cardiac Rubidium PET-CT for quantification of ischaemic heart disease was introduced to Europe in 2007 by the current UCL Chair of Nuclear Medicine, Professor Ashley Groves². INM has continued to innovate in this area, with the first publication of automatic detection of reduced coronary flow using Artificial intelligence (AI)³.

The procedure of identifying whether sentinel lymph nodes had been affected in breast cancer using a process of lymphatic mapping and lymphoscintigraphy was developed at INM in the late 1990’s. At the time the procedure was hailed internationally as the most significant advance in surgical oncology⁴.

INM at UCLH was the first department in the UK to procure a PET-MRI scanner, and this has led to some exciting collaborations and topflight international publications ^5–7

Over this past year the department has produced numerous publications related to the COVID19 pandemic ^8,9, and has commenced a prospective investigation of the damage caused by COVID19 pneumonia.

Over 19,000 patients come through INM’s doors every year for investigations with every modality and for a multitude of conditions. The Institute welcomes medical, radiography, medical physics, nursing staff as well as clinical academics and PhD students from all around the world to provide excellent clinical care and to contribute to INMs continued success in research and development.

We have initiated a charity fund, as part of the UCLH Charity to help to support the work that happens at INM, for equipment, software, conference attendance, training & study days and to improve the facilities that we are able to offer patients that come to the department.