Cincinnati Children’s Becomes First Pediatric Site to Receive Comprehensive Radiopharmaceutical Therapy Center of Excellence Designation

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is pleased to announce it has become the first pediatric site to be designated a Comprehensive Radiopharmaceutical Therapy Center of Excellence by the Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI).

SNMMI-designated Centers of Excellence meet strict regulatory training, qualification, experience and performance criteria to help assure patients, their families, referring physicians and payors that rigorous procedures are in place and followed. Institutions that receive this designation are considered to be leading growth in the field, with experience administering multiple radiopharmaceutical therapies. Institutions with this designation also have established care teams in specific disease areas.

"I am immensely proud of our experts and what they have built in service to our patients,” Brian Coley, MD, Radiologist-in-Chief at Cincinnati Children’s says. “This is the highest-level designation that SNMMI gives, and we have become the first pediatric center to achieve it. Cincinnati Children’s performs more radiopharmaceutical therapies than any other pediatric institution, and with the collaboration and partnership of our clinical oncology colleagues, we have a program second to none.”

Until this year, SNMMI’s Center of Excellence designation has only been given to adult institutions, primarily due to requirements for therapy volumes that simply are not achievable at pediatric hospitals. These requirements were based on adult care and include therapy for prostate cancer, a disease not treated in pediatrics. Cincinnati Children’s advocated on behalf of pediatric hospitals, which perform complex, and sometimes even more challenging, nuclear medicine therapies than adult institutions. As Cincinnati Children’s performs more nuclear medicine therapies, and a greater variety of these therapies, than other pediatric institutions, its volumes were used as a benchmark for SNMMI when creating the new pediatric requirements.

“This designation from the SNMMI recognizes the work of an entire team here at Cincinnati Children’s that is committed to bringing new and needed therapies to our patients while maintaining the highest quality and safety of care,” says Andrew Trout, MD, Director of Nuclear Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s. “The role of Nuclear Medicine and radiopharmaceutical therapy is growing in healthcare, and we plan to continue to lead the way for children, as only Cincinnati Children’s can.”