The benifits of nuclear medicine vs other forms of radiation exams - Term Paper Example

Today the stream of medical technologies has evolved to such an extent that almost all the medical specialists in medicine depend significantly on technology. In the following section this paper briefly describes the imaging modality called Nuclear Medicine. Although the imaging modalities like Nuclear Medicine, X-Rays, Computed Tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, are categorized as modalities of medical imaging. Except for Nuclear Medicine which is also termed as Radionuclide Scanning, rest all belong to the field of radiology.

The latter half of the paper presents a contrast between Nuclear Medicine and other above mentioned modalities of radiology. Nuclear Medicine: It is an old modality of medical imaging that was discovered accidently in middle of the twentieth century. Nuclear medicine is the conglomerate of physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, detectors and computer technology. It uses predetermined amounts of radioactive material to diagnose ailments pertaining to cancer, heart etc. This noninvasive branch of medicine uses imaging modalities after a radioactive material also known as radiotracers is either injected into the subject through intravenous injection or the subject is made to swallow or it is inhaled by the subject.

The radiotracer gets settled in the part of the body that is to be imaged or studied. These radioactive substances emit gamma rays – that is electromagnetic radiations consist of photons. These rays are detected by a gamma camera etc. These devices enable the specialist to understand the condition of the body part, on the basis on the level of radiation that is detected by the detector. Some of the imaging techniques used in nuclear medicine are Positron Emission Tomography (PET Scanner), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), Bone Scanning and Cardiovascular imaging.

Figure 1 shows a PET Scanner. Nuclear medicine is helpful in detecting cancers, inadequate flow of blood to various tissues in the body, improper functioning of organs. Figure 1. PET Scanner (Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology) Radiological Modalities: It is said that the invention of X-Rays by Roentgen in 1895 sparked off a trend of innovation in medicine. Clinical applications of X-Rays lead to the birth of radiology – one of the branches of medicine that has a significant role in other specialties like orthopedics and neurology.

Computed Tomography (CT) scanning is an extension of use of X-Rays in medicine. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MR) is another very important imaging modality that uses magnetic field and it was invented almost the same time as CT. Sideways radiology also saw the developments and use of ultrasounds in medicine. Nuclear Medicine vs. X-Rays, CT & MRI: Utility: Besides the anatomical (structural) information nuclear medicine (also called radionuclide scanning) also presents to the doctors the function of the body’s organ as well.

This information enables the doctors to understand if the organ is functioning properly. In the case of other radiological modalities like X-Ray, CT etc, the information captured by them is purely anatomical. It is worth including here that the nuclear medicine images give lesser information about spatial resolution but the images obtained in nuclear medicine may help us to diagnose an ailment sooner than any other radiological