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Nuclear medicine is a branch of medicine based on the nuclear properties of matter. The procedures involved in diagnosis, such as medical imaging, and therapy use radiopharmaceuticals (drugs labeled with radionuclides). These drugs emit radiation that can be detected and provide a description of the biological process at the cellular level or measurements of the extent of the process of interest. Radionuclides may be injected, inhaled, or ingested. Each drug has a pre-determined dose at which it is effective, but presents minimal risk to the patient. There are medical community guidelines covering the use of radioactive material (and X-rays) in patient diagnosis and care, limiting exposure during the course of a year to below the limit of harm. Most diagnostic radionuclides also have short half-lifes which prevents exposure for long periods of time.

-Therapy-
Iodine-131 is harmful when taken in by healthy individuals. It is a component of radioactive fallout such as that observed after the Chernobyl incident in the 1980s. It accumulates in the thyroid and can cause cancer as it degrades. This radionuclide is also useful as a thyroid specific agent to treat cancer. By accumulating at the site of thyroid cancer it destroys the cancerous cells. It can also be used to treat thyrotoxicosis, keeping the thyroid gland from being overactive.

Gallium is an element most notably used in superconductors such as those found in light emitting diodes (LEDs). However gallium salts have medicinal purposes. Gallium nitrate is used to treat arthritis. Gallium maltolate is in clinical trials as a cancer treatment as well as inflammatory and infectious diseases. There is some hope that gallium may be a new antibiotic.

-Diagnosis-
Tracer studies are diagnostic techniques using radionuclides to trace the system of interest. Both probes and imaging can determine the location a radiocompound migrates to or where it accumulates.

Thallium-201: used in stress tests to test for coronary artery disease, blood flow to the heart
Iodine-131: observe that the thyroid gland is functioning properly
Technetium-99m: bone fractures
Gallium salts or Gallium-67: sites of inflammation, internal bleeding, cancer cell division
Indium-111: monitor activity of white blood cells, abscess identification
Barium gastrointestinal disorders such as colitis

Learn more about this author, Alicia M Prater PhD.
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