Nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine provides your Beacon healthcare team with an effective means for diagnosing, monitoring and treating various conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and neurological disorders. By using a minimal amount of tracers along with specialized cameras, nuclear medicine safely scans how your organs and tissues are functioning. Beacon’s board-certified specialists are dedicated to ensuring your safety, comfort and optimal results. Why it is a useful option:
- Nuclear medicine offers a non-invasive approach to assess the function of your organs and tissues.
- It enables early detection of diseases, potentially before symptoms appear.
- Personalized treatment plans are developed based on the scan results.
- It provides a way to monitor the effectiveness of ongoing treatments.
- The procedure involves minimal radiation exposure, ensuring patient safety.
- Beacon’s team comprises experienced specialists in nuclear medicine.
What is nuclear medicine?
Nuclear medicine is a medical specialty that looks at how your body functions at the cellular and molecular level. After a tracer enters your body, a camera detects the energy it gives off and creates detailed pictures. Unlike X-ray, CT or MRI, which show structure, nuclear medicine imaging shows physiology – how blood flows, how the heart pumps, how bones remodel and how cancer cells use sugar.
Common types of nuclear imaging procedures at Beacon
- PET (Positron Emission Tomography): Uses radioactive tracers (a safe amount of radiation) such as FDG (fluorodeoxyglucose). Often used to detect diseased cells and stage cancers, evaluate response to therapy and assess certain brain and heart conditions.
- Tracers are given through an IV. Cells harboring disease absorb more of the radiotracers than healthy cells and show up on scan as areas to watch and an image is produced.
- SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography): Provides 3D views of blood flow and organ function. Common studies include cardiac stress testing for coronary artery disease, bone scans for fractures or cancer spread and lung scans to evaluate blood clots.
- Additional studies: Thyroid uptake and scans for hyperthyroidism or nodules, hepatobiliary scans for gallbladder function, renal scans for kidney function and drainage, and gastrointestinal bleeding or gastric emptying studies.
Benefits of nuclear medicine include:
- early detection
- precise staging
- ability to guide and monitor treatment
- low risk
- radiation exposure that is generally comparable to or lower than many CT scans
- rare allergic reactions