The future of Nuclear Medicine - Research Paper Example

Nuclear medicine provides Pico molar understanding and exclusive tracer specialty in the in-vivo learning of human pathophysiology for example intake of glucose, somatostatin expression and tissue perfusion. (Peter, 2002, 630) In contrast to anatomic imaging technology nuclear medicine has made great strides in the expansion of new radio-pharmaceuticals but has made little progress in imaging devices. One can define a Nuclear medicine technologist as an expert health care professional, who plays a fundamental part in the field of nuclear medicine or molecular imaging department and find ways to diagnose and treat illnesses.

(Peter, 2002, 638) A nuclear medicine technologist works together with doctors, patients, nuclear pharmacists, computer experts, nurses and a number of other health care personnel. In some cases they may keep a direct contact with the patient; where they arrange, standardize and administer radiopharmaceuticals to the patient; they may also carry out different types of imaging procedures with the patient; for example, they may control imaging, lab and computer instrumentation; and looks after radiation protection of the surroundings.

Technical progress in technologies such as ultrasound and multidetector CT are remarkable. Harmonic imaging of native tissue (without added contrast) with ultrasound is an example of this. Harmonic imaging detects the second harmonic of the transmitted ultrasound pulse rather than imaging the fundamental frequency. Harmonic imaging provides better contrast than fundamental imaging. Harmonic imaging has been applied to the heart to enhance delineation of lesions and perfusion. Strauss (2007) compared harmonic ECHO (with added echo contrast) to myocardial perfusion imaging with 99mTc–sestamibi at rest and pharmacological stress.

In addition to ultrasound improvements in multidetector X-ray-computed tomography has made CT angiography a standard practice and enhanced the