Nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine
is a branch of medicine and medical imaging that uses the nuclear
properties of matter in diagnosis and therapy. Many procedures in
nuclear medicine use pharmaceuticals that have been labeled with
radionuclides (radiopharmaceuticals). In diagnosis, radioactive
substances are administered to patients and the radiation emitted
is measured. The majority of these diagnostic tests involve the
formation of an image using a gamma camera. Imaging may also be
referred to as radionuclide imaging or nuclear scintigraphy. Other
diagnostic tests use probes to acquire measurements from parts of
the body, or counters for the measurement of samples taken from
the patient. In therapy, radionuclides are administered to treat
disease or provide palliative pain relief. For example, administration
of Iodine-131 is often used for the treatment of thyrotoxicosis
and thyroid cancer. Nuclear
medicine differs from most other imaging modalities in that the
tests primarily show the physiological function of the system
being investigated as opposed to the anatomy. In some centres,
the nuclear medicine images can be superimposed on images from
modalities such as CT or MRI to highlight which part of the body
the radiopharmaceutical is concentrated in. This practice is often
referred to as image fusion or co-registration.
Nuclear
medicine diagnostic tests are usually provided by a dedicated
department within a hospital and may include facilities for the
preparation of radiopharmaceuticals. The specific name of a department
can vary from hospital to hospital, with the most common names
being the nuclear medicine department and the radioisotope department.
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