L.+Hurley+nuclear+project+2

=__nuclear medicine__=

http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=gennuclear&bhcp=1

http://interactive.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=3106&RPID=10

http://www.aboutnuclear.org/

Nuclear medicine has been a great advancement for modern medicine. It can be used for many life saving diagnoses. Thanks to nuclear medicine doctors can analyze the kidney, monitor blood flow to and from the heart, locate tumors, breaks or fractures in bones, and can help monitor cancer. The use of nuclear medicine is for the most part very safe and painless. One of the risks is that you are exposed to small doses of radiation (radiopharmaceuticals). Radiation poisoning is always a concern when using this type of treatment. This technology has been used for decades with few reported cases of radiation poisoning. It could be dangerous if you have previous exposures to large amounts of radiation. Radiation is also used for treatment. Most common form is for different types of cancers. This works because the radiation destroys cells so doctors can put it exactly where they want it. It’s also used in a way that can preserve good cells. Patients often feel weak after treatment because many good cells are destroyed in the process. It is very effective as an alternate treatment for cancer and other unwanted growths.

What happens when you go for treatment: you are put in a white tube, like a MRI or a CT. then through a computer doctors and techs can put the radiation in where they want it and be able to see the pictures the machine take of your body. So they can see exactly what they are doing with out surgery.

"My vision is probably not one that would make a lot of nuclear medicine people happy, but, I frankly see nuclear medicine fading into diagnostic radiology as a radiology subspecialty. I think it is the only way it is going to be able to survive. The marriage of the functional data from the nuclear medicine side and anatomic data from the radiology side – PET/CT and SPECT/CT – is necessitating fundamental training as a radiologist before subspecialization in nuclear radiology or molecular imaging. I think nuclear medicine will thrive in that model because of the power of working with tracers at the nanomolar and picomolar level which is way lower than can be assessed with MRI or CT. Nuclear medicine techniques come and go over the years. Change has been one of the fun things about my job. The character of the practice has changed a half a dozen times over the course of the 30+ years I have been in practice. What I did when I started is totally different than what I do now. The types of patients we see and the types of diagnostic testing we perform are completely different." -Barry A. Siegel, M.D. when asked what he thought nuclear medicine would be like in 20 years."

In conclusion, the use of radiation for medical purposes has been proven too be a good use of modern science. Saving millions of lives.

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