Superfluous, controversial and luxury issues in nuclear medicine

Many recent developments in Nuclear Medicine are being implemented in clinical practice today, but at the same time raise a lot of fundamental questions. Do we really need all these new techniques and radiopharmaceuticals, and what are their indications, challenges and drawbacks? What are the financial consequences, and do we have to reconsider the composition of the staff? Are these techniques mature enough yet to be implemented in patient care, only in academic settings or also in smaller nuclear medicine practices?

In the shadow of this context, we discussed and shared research, creativity, collaborations and remarkable developments during the last congress of EANM held in Barcelona. The title of the final plenary session of the Congress was ‘Superfluous, Controversial and Luxury issues’, which was initiated by congress president Stefano Fanti and moderated by Özgül Ekmekcioglu and Fred Verzijlbergen. This Editorial summarises the ideas that were discussed with the audience by six professional speakers with a focus on drawbacks and challenges.