Nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine is one of the oldest forms of medical imaging, it has been around for about fifty years. It remains in use because it allows doctors a way to see the internal workings of your body. This means that they can find out where the problems are without having to perform surgery. In some cases newer technology is starting to replace nuclear medicine but it will likely be around for a long time to come.
Nuclear medicine uses very small amounts of a radioactive material in order to diagnose diseases. They do this because it allows the doctors to see both the structure and the function of your internal organs and tissues. The way that they do this is to either inject or have you swallow a radio tracer. This is a radioactive material it will give off gamma rays that can then be detected by their scanner. This allows them to see the radioactive material as it moves through your body. In a lot of ways it is like an inside out x-ray.
The most common use of nuclear medicine techniques is to check the flow of blood. Particularly around the heart and the lungs. This allows the doctors to see if there any blockages or if their is any internal bleeding. The technique can also be used to check the function of the kidneys or other internal organs. It can even be used to make sure that your brain is functioning properly. Basically anything that would require the doctors to see the function of your internal organs or tissue can be observed using nuclear medicine techniques.
For obvious reasons nuclear medicine scares a lot of people, the idea of injecting radioactive material can be pretty frightening. In reality there is no need to worry, the risks are very small. It is important to remember that the amount of radioactive material that will be injected is tiny. The great fear that people have is getting cancer but cancer is caused by prolonged exposure to radiation not a one time exposure especially not in a small amount. More importantly the benefits of nuclear medicine far outweigh the risks. It allows doctors to diagnose medical conditions that they would have no other way of finding.
For all the positives that nuclear medicine has to offer there are some downsides to it. The biggest is simply how long the procedure takes. It can take hours for the radio tracer to work its way through your body and get to where it needs to be. Then the actual scans can also take hours. You may well be there for the whole day having the procedure performed. In many cases you may have to come back several times so that doctors can see how the tracer is working its way through your system. Fortunately as newer equipment is becoming available the time requirement is being reduced.