The situation of nuclear medicine in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper reviews the situation of nuclear medicine in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), i.e. a group of 15 countries lying east of the Oder river-Trieste line and west of the present/planned EU eastern border. Together these countries have 106.6 million inhabitants, i.e. about a quarter of the population of the "European economic space". Its nuclear medicine, however, represents less than 10% of European nuclear medicine manpower and equipment. In these countries there are at least 245 nuclear medicine departments with 661 nuclear medicine specialists and at least 376 gamma cameras. There are six dedicated PET units and three PET/SPECT centres, as well as one manufacturer of gamma cameras, six radiopharmaceutical manufacturers and two nuclear medicine scientific journals. The biggest nuclear medicine communities are in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The scientific input of the CEE countries to European science is moderate-about 10% when measured by EANM congress abstracts, and 5% when measured by the number of papers in MEDLINE-indexed journals. Mean European bibliometric parameters are approached only by Hungary and-to some extent-the Czech Republic. This survey indicates the need for international cooperation to improve the level of nuclear medicine in the CEE countries so that it reaches European standards. The potential of these countries could also be better used to the benefit of European nuclear medicine.