“What do you mean by nuclear medicine?”
The other day I was reading an article and came across the term nuclear medicine. What does it mean and what does its study involve?
6 Answers
Nuclear Medicine involves the use of radioisotopes for medical imaging. Common procedures are bone scans, stress nuclear cardiac imaging and thyroid scans. PET imaging is also part of NM. Some therapeutic procedures such as treating hyperthyroidism and some cancers are also done. NM physicians can do a 4 year NM residency, though most do diagnostic Radiology and subspecialize in NM.
They are studies that use a radioactive substance that is injected into your body that then is detected as cancer cells take it up and then it can be localized in your body.
Dr Cox
Dr Cox
Nuclear medicine is a subspecialty of radiology involving the administration of small amounts of radioactive materials for diagnostic scanning. Examples would be bone scans looking for cancer and other bone disease, cardiac studies to evaluate the heart's function and to look for areas not getting enough blood (which could lead to a heart attack), lung scans looking for blood clots to the lungs, HIDA scans, which evaluate the function of the gallbladder, and other exams.
Nuclear medicine means putting i of isotopes into the body by one or another route (more frequently parenteral) to see how it is accumulates in the related tissues.
Nuclear medicine is a term used to indicate that a study is being performed utilizing a radioisotope. This may be free radioisotopes, where I could be tagged to a carrier molecule or even a red blood cell, white cells can be tagged as well. This can give much information to a clinician when trying to evaluate the patient for many different conditions.
It involves injecting radioactive particles in your veins that selectively bind to the pathology, then you sit on a big camera that detects the radiation.
