Current and Future Scopes of Nuclear Medicine - Research Paper Example

Future of Nuclear Medicine Introduction Nuclear medicine is a type of medical specialty where techniques that are painless, safe, and cost-effective are used to image the body and to treat diseases. The procedures used in nuclear medicine are able to identify abnormalities quite early, even before they are seen in other diagnostic tests. Nuclear medicine is useful for a broad span of medical specialties, ranging from cardiology to pediatrics to psychiatry. Today there are almost one hundred types of nuclear medicine imaging procedures available and it can be said that there is not one major organ system that cannot be imaged by nuclear medicine. Nuclear medicine will play a major role in molecular imaging and has a bright future ahead of it. In addition the development of new procedures will play a key role in enhancing diagnostic accuracy. It will also play a key role in the field of preventive medicine through accurate and early detection of many diseases. What is nuclear medicine? It is a kind of medical specialty in which specific radioisotopes are used in the human body for the early diagnosis and treatment of diseases. These radioactive materials emit rays that are detected externally by special types of cameras like PET cameras. These cameras in combination with computers form images which provide data and information of the part of the body that is being imaged. According to Dr Rajesh Kumar, "Nuclear Medicine imaging provides vital information about the functional status of the diseased organ which helps understand the effectiveness of treatment." Nuclear techniques are being used in medicine since the introduction of radioisotopes by A.H. Becquerel in 1896 and M. Curie in 1898. It was in 1937 that "artificial radioactivity" was used clinically to treat a patient with leukemia. A landmark event took place in 1946 when a patient suffering from thyroid cancer was treated with radioactive iodine which stopped completely the spread of the cancer. However wide spread clinical use of nuclear medicine did not take place until the 1950s. Nuclear Medicine today Nuclear medicine has grown enormously over the past fifty years. Today it plays an essential role in the medical field from oncology to cardiology to neurology to psychiatry. It uses a variety of imaging devices such as PET and SPECT scans, which work by tracking radioactive chemicals, which are either swallowed, inhaled, or injected into the body. These devices enable physicians to diagnose diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases while they are in the initial stages. Nuclear imaging devices are used for conducting research on human diseases and for developing new treatment methods. Highly targeted radio nuclides are used to deliver lethal doses of radiation to destroy tumor cells. Advances are being made in nuclear medicine which could significantly accelerate, simplify and also reduce the cost of healthcare. Academic institutions are collaborating with industry and federal agencies to find new applications of nuclear medicine to improve diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The Future of Nuclear Medicine Nuclear medicine has progressed at a phenomenonal pace over the last twenty years and tremendous development is expected in the next fifteen to twenty years in this field especially in targeted radionuclide therapy, pediatric nuclear medicine, nuclear cardiology and oncology, radio-pharmacy and nuclear instrumentation. Hybrid or multimodality imaging will continue to evolve and increase in popularity and according to Markus Schwaiger the border between imaging modalities “will have disappeared,” He further says “While there will be specialists for cardiovascular imaging, oncology as well as for neuroimaging—these experts will not be organized according to methods but instead, by imaging targets or diseases,”. In future nuclear medicine will be divided into organ-specific or disease-specific groups. “The future will be more and more image fusion so that physicians won’t think so much about it being PET, CT or MRI. Instead, for each individual patient, it will be a more tailored, more individualized protocol using functional imaging with anatomical imaging, regardless of which modality you choose,” says Liselotte Hojgaard. Nuclear Medicine will continue to be in the forefront in the field of modern clinical medicine and technological development. The future is bright since new radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes are being developed. Research is also being carried out on cancer-detecting and cancer-killing agents like genetically engineered antibodies. According to Tamaki Nagara, “Nuclear medicine has a bright future, and will play a major role in molecular imaging. In addition, a recently developed PET/CT will play a key role in the fusion of structural and functional imaging, enhancing diagnostic accuracy for malignant lesions”. There are many emerging opportunities and avenues in the field of nuclear medicine and if enough research is carried out on these, the future of nuclear medicine is bright. Some of the opportunities are: personalized medicine where physicians can detect and treat diseases based on the genetic profile of a patient, nuclear imaging devices that could track biochemical changes in the body and aid the growth of personalized medicine, individualized treatment for cancer patients by using targeted radionuclide therapeutics and targeting vehicles that can seek out certain cells and deliver required doses of radiation, understanding the mechanisms by which new drugs are absorbed and visually track the drugs which will help in calculating optimal dosage requirements for new drugs, developing new automated screening technologies that will lower the cost of new imaging devices and drugs . PET, which already plays an important role in diagnosis of a variety of diseases, is likely to play a more crucial role in the development of targeted therapies. As Dr Faridul Alam has rightly said, “For next ten to fifteen years tremendous development is expected in the field of nuclear medicine therapy & targeted radionuclide therapy, radio-pharmacy, PET radiopharmaceutical, nuclear oncology, pediatric nuclear medicine, nuclear nephrology, nuclear cardiology & foremost, nuclear instrumentation”. In future, nuclear medicine may come to be known as Molecular Medicine. Our knowledge and understanding of the biological processes taking place in the cells of living organism will expand and specific probing techniques can be developed which will enable us to visualize, characterize and quantify biologic processes at the cellular and even maybe sub cellular levels. Nuclear Medicine can easily adapt itself to this new discipline of molecular medicine, since its emphasis is more on function and use of imaging agents which are specific to a particular disease process. Conclusion In conclusion it can be said that nuclear medicine occupies a preeminent position in medical science and will show further progress in the development of novel radio-nuclides and extremely sensitive new measuring devices, in the identification of physiological and pathological changes occurring in diseases and in medical diagnosis. .However although it has made tremendous contributions to biomedical research and disease management, there is need for further development in such areas as personalized medicine, drug development and preventive health care. Lack of equipment, shortage of trained nuclear medicine professionals and little support from federal research agencies are hindering the advancement of this field. According to McAfee, Kopecky and Frymoyer, “Two major problems may hinder the future practice of nuclear medicine in the United States compared with that in other developed countries: (a) the serious time lag in the approval process for new radiopharmaceuticals by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other agencies and (b) the lack of a facility dedicated to the continuous production of radio nuclides for biomedical research”. References 1. Alam Faridul, Present Status and Future Trends of Nuclear Medicine- Bangladesh Perspective, www.arccnm.org/what_new/.../Bangladesh-Dr.%20F.%20Alam.ppt 2. Hojgaard Liselotte, Quote retrieved from http://www.molecularimaging.net/index.php?option=com_articles&view=article&id=17661:nuclear-medicine-2020-what-will-the-landscape-look-like on 28/4/10 3. Kumar Rajesh, Quote retrieved from http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/64355/Aspire/The+future+is+here.html on 28/4/10 4. McAfee J.G ,Kopecky R.T. and Frymoyer P.A, Nuclear medicine comes of age: its present and future roles in diagnosis, http://radiology.rsna.org/content/174/3/609.abstract 5. Nagara Tamaki, Past, Present, and Future of Nuclear Medicine, Retrieved from sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/.../000020051705A0616271.php – on 28/4/10 6. Schwaiger Markus, Quote retrieved from http://www.molecularimaging.net/index.php?option=com_articles&view=article&id=17661:nuclear-medicine-2020-what-will-the-landscape-look-like on 28/4/10 Read More