Nuclear Medicine
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Nuclear medicine is a specialized branch of modern medicine that utilizes radioactive imaging, diagnosis, and treatment. Rendering to the world nuclear association website (2020), Over 10,000 hospitals worldwide use radioisotopes radiations for about 90% of their procedures in diagnosis and treatments. A radioisotope is radioactive isotopes of an element. The most common radioisotope used in medicine is technetium-99 (Tc-99), accounting for about 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures and 85% of diagnostic procedures worldwide. Other radioisotopes include iodine-131, Strontium -89, and Samarium -153, which are in cancer therapy.
There are numerous nuclear medicine procedures which require specific patient preparation for each of the procedure. In some procedures such as biliary scan, patients are requested not to eat or drink anything for 4-6 hours before the procedures. Others like renal scan, patients are directed to take just a few glasses of water while other scans such as Lung and bone scan, no preparedness is required. Patients are advised to leave any jewels at home, wear loose clothing, and refrain from specific medication and activities before attending the procedure. Different safety measures need to be taken, such as evaluation of the health status of the patient, pregnancy status for women, hypersensitivity of the patient, and the patient history of earlier treatments.
Nuclear medicine has a bunch of advantages as well as disadvantages. According to Gahlot, Mourya, and Gahlot (2017), Nuclear medicine provides advanced nuclear treatment options in the treatment of various critical conditions such as cancer. It also allows early detection of ailment in early stages for timely treatment. Nuclear medicine is also accurate to enable precise diagnosis and treatment. On the disadvantages, nuclear medicine has a very high cost of operation and presents health risks for prolonged exposure to the radiations (Gahlot, Mourya, and Gahlot,2017).
Nuclear medicine procedures are used in diagnosing and treating different diseases and disorders. Nuclear medicine uses specific radioisotopes labeled with specific biological molecules, which will help in identifying particular infected organs and also be utilized in delivering medication to the specific infected cells. Examples of such ailments include hyperthyroidism, thyroid cancer, lymphomas, bone pain, among other types of cancer.
Nuclear medicine has numerous applications in medicine, including Positron Emission Tomography (PET). PET scan is of nuclear medicine imaging that uses small amounts of radioactive materials known as radiotracers. Radio tracers are typically injected to the bloodstream, swallowed, or inhaled and travel to the area of examination and can be detected by special computerized cameras van (Waarde et al., 2017). PET scan is used to identify and diagnose disease in earlier stages even before the symptoms start showing off. PET scans can be used to detect cancer cells and tell how they have spread in the body. It can also be used to determine the effects of heart attack myocardial infarction on areas within the heart tissue. The pet scan will also help the doctor evaluate the metabolism to tell how the tissues and organs are functioning and tell whether the patient is responding to the medication.
Nuclear medicine therapy utilizes radiopharmaceuticals radioisotope to help in the diagnosis and treatment of specific tumors, such as thyroid, lymphomas, or bone metastases. As discussed by Boschi et al., (2018), radiopharmaceuticals are radioisotopes bound to biological molecules such as antibodies and capable of targeting specific organs, tissues, or cells within the human body. After identifying the targeted region, nuclear medicine is applied in delivering radiation to tumorous lesions as part of a therapeutic strategy to cure, mitigate or control the disease
References
Boschi, A., Martini, P., Janevik-Ivanovska, E., & Duatti, A. (2018). The emerging role of copper-64 radiopharmaceuticals as cancer theranostics. Drug discovery today, 23(8), 1489-1501.
Gahlot, K., Mourya, R., & Gahlot, V. (2017, March). Understanding “the fusion imaging”–Methods of fusion with their advantages and disadvantages and study various fusion combinations with their applications. European Congress of Radiology 2017.
van Waarde, A., Sijbesma, J. W., Doorduin, J., Elsinga, P. H., & de Vries, E. F. (2017). Preclinical Testing of Novel Radiotracers for Positron Emission Tomography (PET). In Quality in Nuclear Medicine (pp. 271-293). Springer, Cham.
World Nuclear Association website. (2020). Radioisotopes in Medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/radioisotopes-research/radioisotopes-in-medicine.aspx