NUCLEAR MEDICINE

NUCLEAR medicine is a specialised and non-invasive branch of radiology that uses tiny amounts of safe radioactive pharmaceuticals to image different body systems on a molecular level. This is advantageous as it allows doctors to diagnose diseases in the early stages, evaluate and monitor response to treatment, and target treatment to specific cells.

These scans can tell doctors whether tumours are cancerous or non-cancerous, and often identify abnormalities early in the progression of a disease – long before symptoms become apparent. This early detection allows for a better outcome and can also mitigate against risky surgeries.

Images are acquired using a SPECT CT camera, which is a dual modality machine that has an extreme sensitivity to abnormalities in an organ’s structure and function in one scan.