Over the last few decades, medical imaging has gained an increasing importance in oncology at every step along the cancer care pathway (e.g., detection, staging, post-treatment assessment, detection of recurrence). With the explosion of information available on the internet and shared decision-making, the patients are often aware that imaging results can have a major impact on their care programme. Therefore, they are particularly keen on enquiring about the results as soon as the examination has been completed. The paper proposes an analysis of the philosophical and ethical aspects involved in communicating bad news following imaging examinations of oncologic patients, with special emphasis on nuclear imaging.