Nuclear medicine is an imaging subspecialty within the field of radiology that uses small amounts of radioactive substances called tracers, to diagnose or treat a variety of diseases.
These tracers are usually injected or swallowed and are attracted to specific organs, body systems, or tissues. Once in the body, the tracers give off emissions that can be detected by a special device called a gamma camera. The camera transforms the emissions into images that provide information about the anatomy and function of the body part being imaged. The nuclear medicine physician interprets the images and generates a report of his findings, which is sent to the referring physician.
Nuclear medicine is a safe and painless way to gather information that may be otherwise unavailable from other types of tests. The radiation received is comparable to that received in other radiology procedures. A unique aspect of nuclear medicine is the sensitivity to abnormalities in an organs structure or function. This sensitivity often enables a nuclear medicine test to show an abnormality very early in the progression of some diseases, even before the problem would become apparent with other examinations.
Nuclear medicine exams are useful in diagnosing a variety of diseases and conditions, including:
Detecting and staging tumors
Infections
Assess coronary circulation
Detect internal bleeding
Skeletal abnormalities
Thyroid dysfunction
Pulmonary disease
Liver disease
Gastrointestinal disorders
Kidney disease
Nuclear medicine tests are painless, non-invasive, and entirely safe procedures that can provide valuable information to make a diagnosis or to provide complementary information to correlate diagnostic information already gained with other types of examinations.
For more information about nuclear medicine, visit
Medline Plus, a service of the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
For frequently asked questions about nuclear medicine, visit the
Radiology Info website, public information website developed and funded by the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Nuclear Medicine Locations: Advanced Imaging Center First Colonial, Virginia Beach Advanced Imaging Center Leigh, Norfolk Sentara CarePlex Hospital, Hampton Sentara Heart Hospital Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk Sentara Norfolk General Hospital Sentara Obici Hospital, Suffolk Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center