Running head: NUCLEAR MEDICINE 1
Concepts of Nuclear Medicine
NUCLEAR MEDICINE 2
Concepts of Nuclear Medicine * What type of radiation is typically exploited in most nuclear medicine procedures?
Nuclear Medicine is a specialty used to diagnose and treat diseases in a painless and safe manner, which uses a pharmaceutical (medicine) that’s attached to a small amount of radioactive material (a radioisotope). The procedures can often identify disease in an early stage, thus allowing for treatment to be started sooner. The most common of nuclear enhanced medical procedures involve the use of x-rays — a type of radiation that can pass through our skin. X-rays and other forms of radiation also have a variety
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* Nuclear medicine therapy using radiopharmaceuticals
Medical Imaging and Diagnosis
Radiopharmaceuticals are a group of pharmaceutical drugs that are radioactive. Radiopharmaceuticals are used as Diagnostic and therapeutic agents. They are used as the radio tracers to diagnose the diseased tissues in a body ("Nuclear Medicine Examples").
Therapy
Radioactive materials are used for therapeutic irradiation of cells and/or organs. A small amount of a radiopharmaceutical (Rph) is introduced into the body by injection or ingestion. The Rph is attracted to particular organs or tissues., and the radioisotope releases small amounts of radiation which will act on target cells and/or organs ("Nuclear Medicine Examples").
Summary
When we hear the word “Nuclear” we may automatically relate it to the generation of electricity from Nuclear Power, which is a technology used in many countries all over the world. We must also consider Nuclear Medicine, which has made and will continue in advancements in the future. Nuclear Medicine, can be used to Prevent, Diagnose, Treat, and Monitor diseases at their earliest stage. This technology allows physicians and scientists to research and discover the origin of many diseases such as Cancer. This technology is a metaphor of hope to find cures and more effective treatments for life threatening diseases. Nuclear Medicine administered by trained clinicians will reduce the risk of causing cancer as a
Nuclear medicine technology has advantages and disadvantages just as any other career. Using nuclear medicine technology could diagnose a lot of harmful diseases. Also, it is more effective treatment for most categories of cancerous diseases and conditions in some medical institutions. This type of medicine technology helps physicians perform their responsibility of patients’ therapy easily; moreover, when a serious disease developed in the patient’s body, the x-rays of this medicine technology could scan the most sensitive part of the patient’s body.
Who would have thought we would be using nuclear substances for medical purposes? Well, we are many different ways. I am going to discuss a test called the Indium Scan; this test requires the use of nuclear substances being injected into the blood stream via an IV. The amount of Indium that is giving is based on the patient and what the doctor feels as appropriate.
The nuclear medicine technologist use radionuclides to diagnose and treat diseases. Radionuclides means unstable atoms that release radiation spontaneously and they are purified and compounded to form radiopharmaceuticals that prepare and administer by nuclear medicine technologist. These technologists are particularly specialized health care professional. The radioactive drugs appear higher or lower concentration in the abnormal area of the patient’s body than in the normal area.
Furthermore, X-ray of higher energy than required for imaging is used for radiation therapy. The radiation therapy makes use of ionization radiation (and no images) for the treatment of diseases, such as
All kinds of ionizing radiation that used in health care centers in medical diagnosis and therapy processes, as well the radiation used in diagnostic radiology is the field of medicine that uses radiation to make an imaging exams and procedures to diagnose a patient. In another hand it’s used to treatment for many kind of disease especially to cure from cancer. In any form of medical care, diagnostic radiology plays a significant role in the diagnosis and treatment of disease or injury. The exams often use radiation, at many levels that have been determined and adjusted to be safe as possible, to create detailed anatomical images. (Bekas M, et al, 2016)
When talking about the topic of nuclear medicine, people tend to bicker about whether we should keep using nuclear in our medication or not. Many people are very happy and satisfied with its pros, benefits, and advantages, probably from bias, but many are also against it, again, probably from bias. We should continue to keep using nuclear medicine because it has overall been effective in treating our diseases. Without the technology to treat people today, there would be a lot of casualties. It has been successful in discovering abnormal lesions, certain dysfunctional organs, if the heart pumping blood sufficiently, if the brain is receiving an appropriate supply of blood, if the brain cells are functioning
The first question I asked Dr. Kevin was, “Is nuclear pharmacy harmful to health?” He smiled and said that basically every student will ask this question because nuclear pharmacy sounds radioactive. By showing his dosimeter on his name tag and finger, we know the amount of radiation exposure will be strictly controlled. The female student who is currently training here told us that she delivered a healthy baby last year. Different organizations will inspect the amount of radioactive particles either on lab equipment or the pig container deliver to the health organization annually. The nuclear pharmacy has spectacular applications on diagnosis for multiple disease, such as indium 111 for white blood cell scan. The half life for radioactive
Nuclear medicine is a branch of medical science, which uses small amounts of radioactive materials in order to diagnose and treat diseases. These diseases include cancers, heart diseases, and other irregularities in the body. The nuclear medicine is injected into the blood stream in order to identify potential diseases. There are over forty million nuclear medicine procedures preformed each year through radiation, or the energy in form of waves or high speed particles. The use of nuclear medicine allows the treatment of diseases without surgery. This form of treatment causes only minimal damage to the tissues surrounding cancerous cells.
I am interested in entering the field of Nuclear Medicine Technology because of my father’s medical history. My father was diagnosed in Spring of 2017 with Stage IIB Melanoma. He was accepted into a clinical trial at Emory in Atlanta, GA to hopefully “cure” him. During his clinical trial, he has routine scans that use nuclear medicine technology to be able to see his melanoma sites and the rest of his body at a higher degree then past medical advances would allow. I am one of those patient family members that like to know everything about their family members treatments, so I have asked many questions about the nuclear medicine aspect of his care plan and find it fascinating.
Also, x rays are capable of detecting many other issues such as cancerous masses or pneumonia as well as even dental problems all of which, again, can and have saved many lives [4]. For comparison, 400 million people are subject to x rays annually, which save substantially more lives than those of which were killed in japan [5]. Radiation can also be applied, not only to see but also to save patients in that it can be used, since it damages tissues, to kill things like tumors and other potential dangerous or life threatening masses within your body. Ironically enough it kills what it causes and for purpose of numbers, women with breast cancer had a survival rate of 25.1% in 1944 that more than tripled to 76.5% in the years 1995-2004 [6]. Also, now, 67% of women receive radiation treatment after having been diagnosed and the number is increasing [6]. But, beyond the medical field there are also economical advances that are largely caused by the use of nuclear power. These include the implementation of nuclear power plants that provide the cleanest and quickest way of generating electricity [7]. Also, to again throw numbers into the equation, fossil fuels are being consumed faster than they can be produced and the fuel for nuclear reactors, Uranium-235, is only worth 20%,
The use of radioactive elements in medicine is still growing to this day. Many oncologists use it to treat their patients who have cancer. Many cancer patients use this option. They use the radiation to kill off cancer cells. X-ray technicians or radiologists will also use it to administer x-rays to people who may have a broken bone, or need an MRI. The patient is injected with a radioactive material that helps the doctor be able to see inside the body better, whether it be with pictures or ultrasound. Radioactive material is defined as “material that contains radioactivity and thus emits ionizing radiation. It may be material that contains natural radioactivity from the environment or a material that may have been made radioactive.” (The Healthy Physics Society). This happens when someone needs a colonoscopy. They have to drink or are injected with this liquid that helps their organs and all other masses in the body be seen better by the radioactive materials.
Definition; nuclear medicine is medical imaging that uses radioactive material to diagnose and determine a variety of diseases including many cancers, heart disease, gastrointestinal, endocrine, neurological, disorders, and other problems within the body. Nuclear medicine is able to pinpoint molecular activity in the body. It helps to identify early stages of disease.
Nuclear medicine is being used to treat certain diseases or conditions. Only a very small amount of radiopharmaceutical is given to keep the radiation dose to a minimum. The radioactive substance accumulates in the target area of interest. To find out how the inside of the body is working, we examine under a gamma
Nuclear Medicine is the use of radioisotopes for diagnosis, treatment, and research. Radioactive chemical tracers emit gamma rays which provides diagnostic information about a person's anatomy and the functioning of specific organs. Radioisotopes are also utilizes in treatments of diseases such as cancer. It is estimated that approximately one in two people in Western countries are likely to experience the benefits of nuclear medicine in their lifetime.
In 2007, it is predicted that almost 1.5 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States (Pickle et al., 2007). More than half of these cancer patients will undergo the use of radiation as a means for treating cancer at some point during the course of their disease (Perez and Brady, 1998). Cancer, a disease caused by an uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells, affects millions of people around the world. Radiotherapy is one of the well known various methods used to treat cancer, where high powered rays are aimed directly at the tumor from the outside of the body as external radiation or an instrument is surgically placed inside the body producing a result of internal radiation. Radiation is delivered to the cancerous regions of the body to damage and destroy the cells in that area, terminating the rapid growth and division of the cells. Radiation therapy has been used by medicine as a treatment for cancer from the beginning of the twentieth century, with its earliest beginnings coming from the discovery of x-rays in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen. With the advancements in physics and computer programming, radiation had greatly evolved towards the end of the twentieth century and made the radiation treatment more effective. Radiation therapy is a curative treatment approach for cancer because it is successful in killing cancerous tumor cells and stop them from regenerating.