Highlights of the 32th Annual Congress of the EANM, Barcelona 2019: the nucleolympic games of nuclear medicine-a global competition for excellence.

Abstract

The 32th Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) returned to Barcelona, Spain, from the 12th to the 16th of October 2019, under the chairmanship of Professor Francesco Giammarile. With a total number of 6833 participants from all over the world, the EANM congress was the year's most important meeting in nuclear medicine worldwide. The congress was an unprecedented success, with more than 1800 submitted abstracts presented in scientific sessions and a variety of lectures including CME sessions from all fields of nuclear medicine and multidisciplinary joint symposia with clinical societies. Innovative research was presented in all fields, showing important developments in radiopharmacy and preclinical oncology, PET and non-PET diagnostic strategies, new therapeutic approaches and molecular imaging-based prediction of prognosis and treatment response. In the field of physics and instrumentation, technological progresses, radiomics and artificial intelligence were highlighted as most relevant areas of innovation. This review gives a summary of our personal choice among the most notable developments of this year's contributions as presented in the Highlights session of the Annual congress of the EANM 2019. EANM 2019 outlines a bright future for nuclear medicine, with groups competing all over the world to bring innovation across all fields of medicine, through increased standardization, progressively lower radiation dose and increasingly high clinical impact.