Dr Kehinde Ololade, a second year MMed student in the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Pretoria (UP), won the award for distinguished work at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s conference on clinical PET/CT and molecular imaging that was held in Vienna, Austria from 5 to 9 October 2015.  

Medical imaging technology has revolutionised health care over the past 30 years by enabling early diagnosis of many diseases, which improved the patients’ prognoses. Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (better known as PET/CT or PET-CT) is a medical imaging technique which utilises a device that combines both a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and an X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner, so that images acquired from both devices can be taken sequentially, in the same session, and combined into a single co-registered image. The synergistic use of multimodality imaging provides excellent information during the different stages of disease, as well as an assessment of response to treatment in a safe and non-invasive manner. Perhaps most importantly it enables the delivery of tailored clinical management for patients.

The title of Dr Ololade's presentation was ‘The metastatic pattern of 18 F-FDG PET/CT in HIV positive patients with recurrent cervical cancer’, in which he examined the impact of utilising the hybrid study of PET and CT fused together in the early identification of the unique pattern of spread in recurrent cervical cancer, as well as the pattern of soft tissue and nodal involvement and the identification of the uncommon sites of distribution of this disease. Dr Ololade’s research for his paper was conducted under the guidance of Prof Mike Sathekge, Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at UP.  

The International Conference on Clinical PET/CT, and Molecular Imaging: PET/CT in the Era of Multimodality Imaging and Image Guided Therapy (IPET-2015) was organised by the IAEA, following the success of the IPET-2007 and IPET-2011 conferences held in Bangkok, Thailand and Vienna, Austria, respectively. This year’s conference boasted more than 380 presentations and was attended by over 500 participants from 95 countries across the world. The event provided clinicians, scientists and professionals with an international forum for reviewing the latest developments in all aspects of clinical PET, PET/CT and molecular imaging with a view to addressing the health challenges common to many IAEA member states.