Nuclear Medicine is a medical speciality that uses small amounts of radioactive materials, known as radiopharmaceuticals, for diagnostic, therapeutic, purposes.
These radiopharmaceuticals are specific for the organ, tumour or tissue desired to be studied. Once injected into a patient these radiopharmaceuticals localise
in the area of interest, which is then imaged using a special camera. Highly simplified, it is something like taking an X-ray from the inside-out.
Nuclear Medicine provides unique information about both structure and function of nearly every human organ. It is the ability to characterise and quantify
physiologic function that makes nuclear medicine different from an X-ray / CT or MRI. As radiopharmaceuticals become more sophisticated, it is becoming possible to see inside of human beings at the molecular level.
Nuclear medical procedures are safe, both for the patient and the physicians and technologist performing the tests.
Patients experience little or no discomfort and do not require anaesthesia. Exposure to radioactivity is monitored closely, and kept well below safety limits.
The radiation exposure is usually as much and often lower than the exposure produced by a similar radiological study such as CT.