LAUSR

Introduction The use of terms with the suffix – omics has been increasing in the medical and scientific literature such as radiomics [1,2], genomics [2,3] and proteomics [4] to denote a specific type of manipulation of information in a subject whereby data are extracted and categorized in a way to create more readily recognized entities for clinical or research purposes [5,6]. The recognition of recordable features in various domains is primarily a mental exercise by experts working in the field; however, the categorization and tabulation of data has benefited greatly from the advance in computer applications in all areas of science and medicine [7]. In particular, digital presentation of data especially as images from various medical diagnostic modalities has provided the source of information for such analysis [8]. Radiomics is the prime example of such data manipulation and classification for radiological investigations such as computed tomography (CT) and MRI, and there have been numerous reports on how it could be applied to make optimal use of the data generated by these imaging modalities especially in the diagnosis of cancer [1,2,5,6,9]. It is therefore not such an unreasonable proposal to coin a new process of extracting data from current nuclear medicine practice as Medical Nuclomics. The fact that nuclear medicine involves counting radioactive emissions such as gamma rays after administration of radiotracers to humans using various types of instruments makes it unique in that the data it deals with is quantitative from the start [10,11]. The quantitation of the radiotracer uptake or transit in an organ as it is practiced in nuclear medicine has also the power to be studied over time, as either very short intervals of time in terms of even a tenth of a second as it is done in the first-pass study of the cardiac chambers or longer time periods such as dynamic imaging of the kidneys [12]. Thus, a wealth of information could be extracted from nuclear medicine studies making medical nuclomics a would-be very useful tool for clinical and especially research applications.