Nuclear Medicine

Professor Dr. med. Wolfram H. Knapp, Director of the Department of Nuclear Medicine

Professor Dr. Wolfram H. Knapp is a well-known expert in the field of nuclear medicine. As early as 1982, he paved the way for positron emission tomography in oncology as editor of the standard reference work, Tumor Cell Physiology and Positron Emission Tomography.

Professor Knapp has been head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine of the Hannover Medical School since 1997. He has developed and evaluated many new diagnostic and therapeutic methods, such as those for neuroendocrine tumors, leukemia and lymphomas, and has contributed to the development of guidelines for these disorders.

He was President of the German Society of Nuclear Medicine (DGN) from 2000 to 2006 and is currently President-Elect of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM). For an entire decade, he was co-editor of one of the two leading international journals of nuclear medicine (EJNM).

Clinical Profile

The Department of Nuclear Medicine has the most modern technical equipment for functional and molecular diagnostics, including multi-modal imaging (PET/CT and SPECT/CT).
It has introduced novel, improved methods of cardiovascular diagnostics such as simultaneous quantitative imaging of myocardial perfusion and oxidative metabolism of the heart, as well as novel diagnostic procedures now in wide use for tumor detection and definition of tumor spread: the first peptide receptor imaging with positron emission tomography.

The Department is also specialized in the diagnostics of recurrences of prostate carcinomas, the pre-operative localization of hyperfunctioning parathyroid glands, and in brain tumor diagnostics.
In radionuclide therapy, the Department is one of the largest treatment centers for thyroid  carcinomas, including post-treatment aftercare. Nearly one in ten of all patients in Germany with this disease receives treatment here. 22 beds for treatment with radionuclides are at the Department's disposal.
The Department is also involved in a number of national and international therapy studies.

Areas of clinical expertise of the Department of Nuclear Medicine:

• Thyroid carcinoma
• Treatment of hyperthyreosis and goitres
• Treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphomas
• Diagnostics and therapy of neuro-endocrine tumors
• General tumor diagnostics, especially staging
• Monitoring of the therapeutic effects of anti-neoplastic agents
• Differential diagnostics of neuro-degenerative diseases
• Diagnostics of skeletal diseases
• Localization of infectious foci
• Radiosynoviorthesis in rheumatologic joint diseases
• Anti-algesic therapy in multiple bone metastases

The Department is staffed by more than 50 physicians, technical assistants, nurses, physicists, chemists, and engineers.

As a Regional Radiation Protection Center, the Department has broad areas of responsibility in the field of radiation protection.

Scientific Profile

The Department of Nuclear Medicine is an important center for the production of radionuclides and is the only production site in Germany for the alpha emitter astatine-211.
Fundamental investigations on the kinetics of At-211 in anionic form have been carried out here, and it has been shown that this species is a substrate of the sodium-iodide symporter.
Tumors transfected with the respective gene have been successfully treated with the alpha emitter in animal models, and several awards have been given for this research.

The Department was the first to apply positron tomography to label stem cells in order to study their kinetics after myocardial infarction. Moreover, positron emission tomography was first used here for cannabinoid receptor imaging in the human brain.

Among the areas of successful clinical research are the improvement of pre-operative diagnostics in parathyroid diseases, the localization of recurrences of carcinoma after prostatectomy, and radio-immuno-conditioning in acute leukemia.
The Department also engages  in scientific cooperation with many European and industry partners.

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