Therapeutic nuclear medicine has come a long way over the last decade. More than 20 million Americans now benefit each year from nuclear medicine procedures used to diagnose and treat a wide variety of diseases (SNMMI and Safe/Beneficial Medical Uses of Radiation, 2017).
This type of therapy is often used as a means to treat hyperthyroidism, thyroid cancer, bone metastases from prostate and breast tumors, as well as other types of cancer and diseases. It can be used alone or in combination with other therapeutic means of medicine, such as surgery or chemotherapy. Radiation therapy is used in the treatment of approximately 40% to 60% of patients who are diagnosed with cancer (Errors in Radiation Therapy, 2009). In many cases, the
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This treatment may be very aggressive but, when it comes to cancer, being thorough is of utmost importance.
Therapeutic nuclear medicine is used in many different ways to help and treat patients when they are fighting cancer or other diseases. Doctors will take the steps to do whatever they can to make sure that the patient will survive or at least achieve improvement in their health to some degree. When a patient is undergoing surgery to remove the cancer cells, the doctors will often have them go through radiation beforehand to shrink the cancer or tumor down to a size that is easier to remove and to ensure they are not removing more than necessary. Often during surgery, the surgeons will again treat the patient with radiation while they are open so that the radiation is hitting the direct tumor or cancer cells being targeted. Another benefit is that it provides the radiation treatment without having to direct it through the skin again. This reduces the amount of radiation that the patient is getting to a certain degree. Once the surgery is over, the patient will often have to continue with more treatments to make sure that, if anything was missed, it will be attacked by the radiation and be prevented from spreading. Eliminating the cancerous cells can often take more than one type of medical therapy, and it can often take multiple treatments (Radiation
Nuclear medicine is a certain branch of medicine that uses a specific type of radiation to give out important information about how a person's specific organs work. As well as, showing the organ and treating a disease that is inside of it. When information gets viewed by special physicians, they make sure to get a quick, accurate diagnosis of what the patient's illness is right away. The main organs that can be easily imaged by the nuclear medicine is the thyroid, bones, heart, liver, lungs, and the gallbladder. There are many hospitals that use the radiation; called radioisotope, in medicines. The most common one is named Technetium-99, which is used in medical diagnostic procedures annually. Nuclear medicine was created in the 1950s by physicians
“Nuclear medicine is a highly specialized field of radiology. It requires the oral or intravenous administration of radiopharmaceuticals, radioactive isotopes combined with organ specific medications, in order to perform
Radiotherapy, also called radiation therapy, is the treatment of cancer and other diseases with radiation. Radiotherapy is used when the entire primary tumor cannot be surgically removed. Radiotherapy deposits energy
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.
Radiation therapy is commonly used as a proven and widely accepted way to treat cancer. The American Cancer Society attests to this because of the extensive research they have done in this field. High-energy radiation damages a cell’s deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). When a cell divides, its DNA splits. According to the Mayo Clinic, radiation therapy is sometimes given with curative intent (that is, with the hope that the treatment will cure cancer, either by eliminating a tumor, preventing cancer recurrence, or by both). In such cases, radiation therapy may be used alone or in combination with surgery, chemotherapy, or all three. Radiation therapy may also be given with palliative intent. Palliative treatments are not intended to cure. Instead, they are meant to relieve certain symptoms and reduce
Medicine has developed into an astonishing work of pure art over the years. From an old village healer crushing the simplest herbs in ancient times, to large machines administering chemical formulas to patients today. The newest addition to this artwork is Nuclear Medicine. Nuclear Medicine is a medicine that deals with the use of radioactive substances entering the body to attach/ attack cells. Whether it be to diagnose, test, or to treat, this nuclear technology has driven the medical and chemistry world into the future.
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.
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.
Being a nuclear medicine technology means creating images of different area of the patient’s body and preparing radioactive drugs and administer them to patients undergoing the scans. The technologists
Cancer, like other illnesses does not discriminate. It affects the rich and the poor and anyone who is susceptible to it. According to the American Cancer Society, millions of people are diagnosed each year. With these diagnostics, there are also many deaths. This is because some people do not respond to treatment or they come in too late. There have been some cases where there are no treatments or cures for the type of cancer as well. Cancer is like a plague and it has to be stopped and it takes the job of radiation therapists and many other oncology specialists to come together to defeat it.
Chemotherapy uses drugs that are designed to slow or stop the division of cancer cells. It targets cells that are in the process of dividing into two new cells and kills them, some drugs destroy the cell's control center and kills the cell, and some disrupts the chemical processes in cell division. Side effects of chemotherapy include nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and low red blood cell numbers. Because chemotherapy kills rapidly dividing cells like cancer, other normal cells that divide rapidly are also killed. Hair, bone marrow, and skin cells are constantly dividing to grow more hair, produce red blood cells, and replace dead skin cells. Radiation therapy uses targeted energy like x rays or radioactive substances to kill or shrink tumors. There are three types of radiation therapy delivery methods. External beam radiation therapy uses an external machine that directs radiation onto cancer cells. Internal radiation therapy uses radioactive material that is placed directly or near a tumor with a catheter. Systemic radiation therapy uses a radioactive substance that is swallowed or injected and travels through the bloodstream and locates and kills cancer cells. Side effects of radiation therapy depend on which part of the body the treatment is applied, some common general side effects are fatigue, and itching, blistering, or peeling of the skin. In the head and neck it can cause tooth decay, and mouth and gum sores, in the chest it can cause radiation pneumonitis, which causes a cough and fever, and radiation fibrosis, which is scarring of the lungs caused by untreated radiation pneumonitis. Radiation therapy causes side effects because high doses of radiation is applied to areas of the body which kill cancer cells, but also damages healthy cells near the treatment
tumors are treated but if surgery is not a viable treatment radiation can also be used.
Radiation therapy is the use special machines to convey high-energy rays that damage cancer cells and stop them from growing. The radiation can be directed to a specific area of the body or the whole body. Some side effects that come from the therapy are fatigue, hair loss, nausea, or red, dry, itchy skin.
Radiation therapy is the ionization of atoms in tissues resulting in formation of highly reactive radicals in a well-defined, restricted volume (1). In other words, ionizing radiations are used to eradicate tumors and at the same time preserve structure and function of normal tissue. A limitation is prevented from being a problem. If bone marrow or neuronal cells are destroyed or injured, they do not regenerate. However, with radiation therapy, these cells are often saved from injury or destruction, unless the tumor is infecting bone marrow or neuronal cells. Today, radiation therapy is the most popular type of cancer therapy in use. It is used to treat one-half to two-thirds of all cancers, which translates to more than ten percent of the population
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.