Professor Iriri, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital, Awarded Best Paper by the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine

Professor Lee Riri of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital (right) is receiving the Best Paper Award from the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine.
[Photo by Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] Professor Lee Riri of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital announced on the 10th that she recently won the Best Paper Award at the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine conference.

Professor Lee earned this honor with her paper titled "Dopamine Receptor PET Findings According to Clinical Features of Multiple System Atrophy." Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) is a sporadic neurodegenerative disease of unknown cause. Diagnosis is made based on clinical history and neurological examination, but accurate diagnosis is difficult, and treatment is also challenging, causing significant suffering for patients.

Professor Lee analyzed the dopamine receptor reduction patterns of 65 MSA patients who underwent brain dopamine transporter (DAT) positron emission tomography (FP-CIT PET) using principal component analysis (PCA), an unsupervised machine learning method. As a result, she confirmed that dopamine receptor binding can reflect the clinical characteristics of MSA. This study is meaningful in that it validated a biomarker that helps understand the fundamental pathophysiology of MSA.

Professor Lee explained, "Nuclear medicine imaging is very sensitive due to its targeting nature, and the images themselves contain prognostic information about diseases. Machine learning highlights these advantages of nuclear medicine imaging, enabling a better pathophysiological understanding of diseases and can be used to develop quantifiable imaging biomarkers." She added, "This study is also significant in that it found clues for treating MSA through nuclear medicine imaging."

Professor Lee currently serves as the head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital and has been active in various fields, including receiving the Fujifilm Academic Award from the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine in 2019.

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