Abstract
Nuclear medicine utilizes radioactive molecules (radiopharmaceuticals) for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The diagnostic information obtained from imaging the distribution of radiopharmaceuticals is fundamentally functional and thus differs from other imaging disciplines within radiology, which are primarily anatomic in nature. Imaging using radiopharmaceuticals can be subdivided into single- and dual-photon modalities. A wide selection of radiopharmaceuticals is available for single-photon imaging designed to study numerous physiologic processes within the body. Static, dynamic, gated and tomographic modes of single-photon acquisition can be performed. Dual-photon imaging is the principle underlying positron emission tomography (PET) and is fundamentally tomographic. PET has expanded rapidly due to the clinical impact of the radiopharmaceutical 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose, a glucose analogue used for imaging of malignancy. The fusion of nuclear medicine tomographic images with anatomic CT is evolving into a dominant imaging technique. The current chapter will review physical, biological and technical concepts underlying nuclear medicine.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Principles and Advanced Methods in Medical Imaging and Image Analysis |
| Publisher | World Scientific Publishing Co. |
| Pages | 63-98 |
| Number of pages | 36 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789812814807 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789812705341 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine