Resource Centre - About Nuclear Medicine
Nuclear medicine is a unique branch of medicine and medical imaging that uses radioactive substances, called radiopharmaceuticals, to both diagnose and treat disease.
Radiopharmaceuticals are either a radionuclide or a radionuclide labelled to a pharmaceutical. In diagnosis, radiopharmaceuticals are administered to patients intravenously, orally or by inhalation, and then the radiations emitted from the patient are detected. The administration of the radiopharmaceutical rarely causes any discomfort and patients are often surprised at how easy it is. When administered, the radiopharmaceutical moves and localises in a particular part of the patient's body. The majority of these tests then involve the formation of a series of precise and detailed images of the organ or system being investigated, by a sophisticated gamma camera.
Nuclear medicine imaging is unique because, as well as structural information, it can provide detailed information about changes in the function or physiology of virtually every organ or system in the human body. Functional changes often occur before anatomical ones, and so nuclear medicine studies have the potential to identify abnormalities and changes very early in the disease, as compared to other diagnostic tests. To complement imaging studies, nuclear medicine procedures can also involve the analysis of biological specimens in the laboratory.
In treatment, nuclear medicine can be used to deliver radiopharmaceuticals directly to the organ being treated. Treatments using nuclear medicine techniques play a strong role in the therapy of cancer using beta radiation.
Nuclear medicine studies are essential in many medical specialties including cardiology, oncology, orthopaedics, paediatrics, endocrinology and urology. In addition, nuclear medicine is providing new and innovative procedures able to target and examine the molecular basis of disease, and in doing so, is helping to change and advance understandings of disease processes and treatment.