Nuclear Technology & Modern Medicine

Nuclear technology and modern medicine have found a happy marriage in the realms of advanced disease treatment and diagnostic imaging. This technology has enabled physicians to create surgical strategies that involve no incisions on the human body and to fight cancerous tumors with minimal invasion. Doctors are also better able to diagnose injury and illness, thanks to developments in nuclear imaging that have paved the way for three-dimensional modeling of the inside of the human body.

History

• Nuclear medicine owes much of its modern therapeutic applications to the discovery of X-rays in 1895. Outside of the realm of diagnostic imaging, nuclear medicine saw a breakthrough in 1946 when a patient's thyroid cancer was treated with radioactive iodine. Through the use of this compound the patient's cancer was completely eliminated, which caused scientists as well as doctors to look into radioactivity as a medical treatment in addition to its uses as a diagnostic tool.

Diagnostic Imaging

• The discovery of the X-ray has given way to modern developments in nuclear medicine within the realm of diagnostic imaging. Positron emission topography (PET) scans use radioactive material to diagnose and treat a myriad of diseases including genetic disorders within the body, cancer and heart disease. This is accomplished by ingesting or injecting a radio-tracer which will give off gamma rays once it has accumulated in the body. The gamma rays are then detected by a "gamma camera" which produces the high-resolution image.

  Nuclear medicine continues to develop higher-contrast methods of viewing the human body, including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), all using radioactive materials to better view the inside of the human body in two- and three-dimensional images, including its organ functions and potential problem areas.

Nuclear Treatment

• Radiation therapy has become the pre-eminent method of cancer treatment in the United States since that first case of effective treatment in 1946. This therapy uses targeted radiation treatments on infected areas of the body to bombard tumor cells with doses of gamma radiation in order to shrink the cancer. This process may take several treatments to see effective results, though not all cancers respond.

  Gamma radiation is also being used as a surgical means. According to irsa.org, the website for the International RadioSurgery Association, "gamma knife" procedures use no incisions during brain surgery, instead using over 200 beams of gamma radiation to shrink and dissolve lesions. This nuclear technology eliminates many of the old risks of brain damage and death that were commonly associated with brain surgery.

Employment Opportunities

• According to healthcaretraveler.com, nuclear medicine is becoming one of the most portable fields in the country. This is due in part to the smaller quantity of qualified personnel versus the emerging number of positions available to these professionals in the health care field. This shortage, when coupled with an aging population that will have greater need of nuclear medicine and diagnostic techniques, only serves to increase demand. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the nuclear medicine field to grow "faster than average" through 2010.

Risks

• Radiation and radioactive therapy is not without its risks. Patients receiving multiple diagnostic imaging tests using radiation are at an increased risk of damaging cells in the body. In some cases, cells that do not die may mutate and become cancerous.

  Chemotherapy and other treatments for diseases and cancer carry significant side effects on the body. Patients experience diminished ability to produce red and white blood cells, resulting in fatigue and the inability to fight off infection. Patients also experience constant nausea, hair loss and difficulty breathing.