Talk:Nuclear medicine

Hi,

[Untitled]

"For example, the second most commonly used radionuclide is Tc-99m, following the most commonly used radionuclide, F-18 (which is produced by accelerator bombardment of O-18 with protons."

I do NOT agree with this.. for me the most used radionuclide is by far Tc-99m, maybe followed by F-18 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.218.148.129 (talk) 15:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Arguments to that :

1) wikipedia; Article on Tc-99m : Technetium-99m in Nuclear Medicine

Technetium-99m is used in 20 million diagnostic nuclear medical procedures every year.

and

2) Report 280: MARKET FOR PET RADIOPHARMACEUTICALS AND PET IMAGING (from BIO-TECH SYSTEMS inc.):

  (link: www.biotechsystems.com/reports/280/default.asp)

The demand for PET continued to grow in 2007 reaching 1.8 million procedures, an increase of 21% for the year. Growth should continue with procedure volume increasing 20% in 2008. By 2015, PET procedure volume should rise to 7.1 million procedures.

3) 90% of all nuclear medicine exams use Tc-99m (my radiopharmacy course!)

NOTE (F-18 is around 90% of PET procedures) so that means that in 2008 there was 10 fold more nuclear medicine procedures using Tc-99m than F-18...

Perhaps you should add some references concerning the number of exams for each radionuclide.

Good luck

David —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skaarjcookie (talk • contribs) 16:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

Given some of the talk on this page, it seems that this article has been subjected to some vandalism, apparently due to misguided concerns about nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, etc. Maybe the articles could be resticted to editing, or maybe even the title could be changed somehow to avoid attacks of this kind.

-David 64.73.227.163 03:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

"Nuclear Medicine" is the name of this field of medical science. It makes no sense to change the title of the article because of a few nuclear-phobic vandals. Good idea about restricting editing, though. -Rob 5 JAN 2007

There's also been some 6th-grade style vandalism--search for "penis" to find it. They clearly had destroyed some words at the end of the sentence, and I wasn't quite sure what was missing, or I would have just fixed this.

64.241.37.140 17:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Gamma-camera

Hi All,

I'm of the opinion that the entire following section should be moved to "Gamma-camera", as this seems to be a specific topic within a broad-titled article. There is already a link within the article for further explanation of a gamma-camera if the reader is interested and wants to explore further.

I'd originally written this to be a layperson's article, without wishing to delve too deeply into instrumentation, nuclear physics, physiology, etc. under this title.

Opinions? Comments? If I don't hear any objections, I'll move that slab to gamma-camera.

- Adam

Proposing to move this:

Traditionally, gamma-cameras have consisted of a gamma-ray detector, such as a single large sodium iodide scintilation crystal, coupled with an imaging sub-system such as an array of photo-multiplier tubes and associated electronics. Solid-state gamma-ray detectors are available, but are not yet commonplace. Currently, a company called Digirad (http://www.digirad.com) ® is the primary producer of the Solid-state gamma camera. Gamma-cameras employ lead collimators to form an image of the radionuclide distribution in the body on the gamma-ray detector.

Gamma-camera performance is usually a balance of spatial resolution against sensativity. A typical gamma-camera will have a resolution of 4 to 6 mm and will be able to capture several hundred thousand gamma-ray 'events' per second. The gamma-camera will detect the X an Y position of each gamma-ray event, and these coordinates will be used to build an image, as shown above. In nuclear medicine, the value of an image pixel is the integral of gamma-ray events in that pixel position over time. In non-tomographic images, the pixel can also be thought of as the line integral of radionuclide distribution of a perpendicular line extending from the pixel position through the body of the patient. The units of a raw nuclear medicine image is 'counts' or 'kilocounts', refering to the number of gamma-ray events detected.

Since each nuclear medicine radionuclide has a unique gamma-ray emission energy spectrum, and since the energy of a gamma-ray is detected in a gamma-camera by the brightness of the scintilation associated with an event, gamma-cameras employ energy 'windows' to gate or limit the imaging process to gamma-ray events of particular energies. An energy window is usually tailored to the peak of the energy spectrum of a particular radionuclide, and to ignore other gamma-rays that would otherwise contribute noise to the image. This allows noise caused by compton scattering to be gated out.

Disagree; a brief mention of the principles of a gamma camera belong here. JFW | T@lk 13:43, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---

Details

This article is now very general, and does not actually mention any common scans (V/Q scintigraphy, bone scan, thyroid studies, SestaMIBI scans). I do not have access to a nice list. Does anyone else? JFW | T@lk 13:43, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This article is hard to understand for those who don't have a background in radiology, maybe a few sections that are easier for the common audience to understand, for example those who are debating a career in radiology and would like to know their options Kali.a.stene (talk) 22:39, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Nuclear medicine / nuclear imaging

What entails nuclear medicine? Is radiation therapy part of it? Or it is mostly only nuclear imaging? fnielsen 08:13, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Nuclear medicine encompasses diagnostic tests and therapeutic examinations. A large proportion of the diagnostic work involves imaging, and a smaller proportion (depending on the nuclear medicine department) involves non-imaging (e.g. the assay of blood samples to measure the glomerular filtration rate of the kidneys). Therapies with unsealed sources are also performed and are part of the field of nuclear medicine. --AjAldous 14:42, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

The introduction should be updated so that the reader can clearly see that nuclear medicine refers to imagining, diagnostics, etc., NOT therapy for things like cancer treatment. Ajnosek (talk) 23:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Nuclear Reactors

A point was brought up in nuclear power - there's no discussion of the source of the specific radioisotopes mentioned in this article. Simesa 01:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Page claimed that Chalk River produced two thirds of world supply of medical radioisotopes. Every other reference I've seen to Chalk River says it produces one third and Petten (Netherlands) produces another third - so when both were offline, two thirds of the world supply was offline. Corrected. 109.153.163.58 (talk) 23:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Image

Scintigraphie osseuse révélant une lésion sous le bord inférieur droit de l'orbite

Hello I come from the french Wikipédia, I just warn you i upload a image. Enjoy!

I think this article needs a re-organisation...

1st line reference to exclusively "unsealed" sources is too specific since diagnostic imaging seems to be also included in this article - methods of which use sealed sources... ...and highlights the general confusion in this article which does not make a clear disctinction between imaging methods (i.e. where is PET?), diagnostic methods, and therapies; or between the various subdisciples of each.

A useful primer

Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiJon (talk • contribs)

Thoughts include:

• Please post new comments at the end
• Please sign posts with four tildes.
• Excellent link, I have just added it to the article.
• "Be bold" as they say; you have good suggestions, go ahead and make changes to the article. --GangofOne 20:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs quite a bit of tidying up and expansion. Regarding WikiJon's comments, the field of nuclear medicine is that which uses unsealed radioactive sources for diagnosis and therapy, so I think that the first line is accurate. However, unsealed sources do play a part, e.g. external gamma sources for attenuation correction in SPECT

One could argue that PET is a branch of Nuclear Medicine since it uses unsealed positron emitting radioactive substances, so it ought to be mentioned in this article.

Diagnostic imaging is the major area of nuclear medicine - using gamma cameras and PET scanners to acquire images.

A complicating factor is the increasing emergence of multimodality scanners such as SPECT/CT and PET/CT machines. As in other medical disciplines there is increasingly more crossover between different fields.

I hope these comments are useful and I also hope to make some constructive contributions to this article in due course (life's busy!). Fizzy 12:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I am doing research for my eighth grade class and I was wondering how much you people make. Thank you so much! - Katie—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.77.166.180 (talk • contribs) .

• Katie, that depends which country you're in, and how long you've be in the game. Between $30k and $70k in Australia. In the UK and USA, pay rates are much higher.Professornuke 06:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC) Professornuke.

Biased

It is completely biased in favour of nuclear energy

• Could you point out what in specific is biased in favour of nuclear energy? This article deals with nuclear medicine. --Drahreg01 16:09, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed, this article is a purely factual description of a medical imaging modality that is in widespread use and available in most major hospitals. It has nothing to do with the nuclear power industry. College Lecturer, 25 August 2006.

• Actually, the complainer used the term "Nuclear energy" and not "Nuclear power industry"--which leads one to think that this person (as, indeed, much of the general public) does not understand the difference between a)Nuclear energy as a source of electricity, b)Nuclear energy as a source of weapons, and c)Nuclear reactor by-product as a source of medical materiel. This article would do well to enumerate the amount of Nuc. Med. studies done worldwide annually. Maybe a section called Benefits to Mankind (Or something less hokey like "Patient Benefits") could briefly explain how Nuc. Med. helps save countless lives through millions of patient studies each year. This could be done without displaying a bias toward other uses of nuclear energy. Rob Teasley, RT(N) 16 Nov. 2006 (P.S. I agree this is an unbiased, factual article. The complainer is probably one of those people who think everything with the word "nuclear" in it is evil.)

A Personal History of Nuclear Medicine

"A Personal History of Nuclear Medicine" might be a good reference source for making improvements to this article. - Nick

radiopharmacy reference in background section

Hey I'm new to this whole thing so I didn't want to change it myself but I believe new legislation in the US at least prevents most hospitals from doing their own radiopharmacy stuff (ie using a reactor to make tc 99m from molibdinum )but I'm just a nuc med student and don't necessarily trust myself as an authority, anybody know for sure? Here's the text I'm referring to:

Nuclear medicine diagnostic tests are usually provided by a dedicated department within a hospital --and may include facilities for the preparation of radiopharmaceuticals--. The specific name of a department can vary from hospital to hospital, with the most common names being the nuclear medicine department and the radioisotope department

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.137.86.56 (talk) 18:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

i agree with everything —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.154.176 (talk) 00:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

By "preparation of radiopharmaceuticals" the article is not necessarily talking about preparation of radioisotopes, but the chemical carriers for them. Sometimes this must be done at a hospital, because the half-life of the isotope is too short for it to be transported efficiently, after it is attached to the carrier. A classic example is various carriers for technetium-99m, which would be attached to the isotope after it is extracted from the generator, but this would be done on-site (unless there are some new regs that I don't know about!). As for preparation of radioisotopes, of course nobody will have a nuclear reactor, but a classic example would be a medical cyclotron for preparation of F-18. Are you suggesting that these are going away? SBHarris 08:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Updating and reorganizing the Nuclear Medicine Section

Dear all,

This article needs updating and reorganization of information that would be more relevant to patients, clinicans, researchers, medical students or a general public with an interest in Nuclear Medicine. Since NM is a medical specialty, the article should focus more on the clinical aspect of NM, rather than the physics of NM or research topics. I am a member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and will be editing the article over the next few weeks to bring relevant and updated information to Wikipedia. Thank you. Please let me know if you any suggestions. Thank you. Myohan (talk) 21:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the major one is to please remember WP:SS. It may be that there is a lot of info here which isn't clinical enough to warrant the depth of discussion in clinical wiki (one that is clinical by definition = nuclear MEDICINE), but that doesn't mean that the extra info on research and physics should disappear. Instead it needs summary within this article, and the extra info spun off into {main} subarticles on physics and research topics within this field. Of course all clinical medicine has a physics/physiology and research underpinning and we don't want to lose this info in an encyclopedia. Just don't delete stuff until you're sure that summary and move is not the answer. SBHarris 08:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! This article needs revision so that it will be more useful for a wider range of readers. The Society of Nuclear Medicine is an international organization, but it is centered in the United States. I would encourage editors from other parts of the world to contribute as well. Tony46 (talk) 19:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I am glad to know that the article will be undergoing revision. Two points:

• Please make the relation between the PET scan article and this one. Is PET a subset of nuclear medicine? They both use positron emission but the PET article does not mention technetium, which the NM article says is in common use. Is that the difference?

Essentially, yes. PET is a subset of nuclear medicine, which is the part of medical practice that makes use of radioisotopes. PET must use positron-emitting radioisotopes (and can't "see" any others), but nuclear medicine as a field also uses other non-PET techniques, using various other radioisotopes which emit gamma rays (for imaging) and occasionally other particles as well (for treatment). Technetium is one of these. SBHarris 08:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

• Probably most of the article should be devoted to clinical uses, but please keep a section devoted to the physics of it (which now includes the listing of materials). This is important to some readers. It could be that the physics should be in a separate article. --SixWingedSeraph (talk) 19:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes. No information should be deleted. If it is "clogging up" a main article, that is a clue it must be summarized and go into a new subarticle, per WP:SS. That's the way Wikipedia grows-- this is all as normal as re-potting a plant as it gets larger. SBHarris 08:27, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Nuclear Medicine article update and major revision

Dear all,

I am a nuclear medicine physician in US. I have spent a lot of time over the last few weeks (as mentioned in above discussions) to make this article more relevant for the general public and provide useful information for patients, medical students, and technolgists. I am also working closely with the Society of Nuclear Medicine on this article to highlight and educate the general public about nuclear medicine. I appreciate the effort of previous authors and instead of deleting contents that were already available before, I have incorportated and reorganized the previous content into the current article. I didn't touch the section on "source of radioisotopes", "analysis", and "radiation dose". I also uploaded a few pictures of common NM scans. I hope people will find this article useful and informative. Thank you.

user:myohan —Preceding undated comment added 16:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for the major work on the article. I think that the pre-Aug 18 version had a slightly better flow to it, so I'm going to begin working on reconciling the new version with the old layout. In addition, the section you added on careers in nuclear medicine really wasn't appropriate IMO: it read rather like a university prospectus, and as it wasn't referenced by secondary sources it would not have been possible for the reader to verify the content. As such, I have removed it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The sections on Career in Nuclear Medicine, Training, NM technologists are all revelant to this article. Please do not delete these sections. NM is a medical specialty and it is a career or a potential career to many who are interested in NM. This page gets a lot of hits from patients who wants to find out more about NM studies and from people who are interested in NM as a career choice. Thank you. user:myohan —Preceding undated comment added 16:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC).

I like the I-131 post therapy image. I do not favor deletion. --Tony46 (talk) 09:39, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I do not know why some figures in this article are being deleted automatically or if some one is deleting them. I have not deleted any figures myself. I will try to re-upload them again.

user:myohan

Split

Radionuclide imaging or nuclear scintigraphy deserves a specific article, because nuclear medicine is a very broad field of study. It would facilitate all links to it - it's confusing when it's redirected to the whole field of study. Mikael Häggström (talk) 19:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm doing it now. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:24, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with doing it now, as the article is not long enough. And are you going to include brachytherapy in the treatment section, or not? Or have a merge/split debate there, too? I think it best to let the non-brachytherapy therapy uses of nuc-med (which are few) stay here, since they take up little room. SBHarris 17:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually there won't be very much of a split, rather a new article on scintigraphy. It is just one of several ways of diagnostic nuclear medicine (PET being another), so not very much will be removed from this one. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget that we already have one on gamma camera. In general, it's usually better to wait until articles exceed the 50 K lower limit of the "too large" size, before thinking of spinning off subarticles. You can do it prematurely, but what's the point? When you do, somebody just comes along and suggests a merger, and then there's more drama. SBHarris 00:08, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Gamma cameras are used in SPECT and PET as well, and I think scintigraphy deserves an own article just as much as PET and SPECT. I just submitted the scintigraphy article. I think it should be separate in any case, but could accept it being a subsection in another article as well if the consensus tells so. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

File:PET-MIPS-anim.gif to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:PET-MIPS-anim.gif will be appearing as picture of the day on July 4, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-07-04. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! —howcheng {chat} 16:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Picture of the day

Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP) of a wholebody positron emission tomography (PET) acquisition of a 79 kg (174 lb) female after intravenous injection of radiopharmaceuticals, an example of nuclear medicine, a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. This technique allows physicians to image the extent of a disease process in the body, based on the cellular function and physiology, rather than relying on physical changes in the tissue anatomy. This particular scan was performed as part of a tumor diagnosis prior to applying radiotherapy. Besides normal accumulation of the tracer in the heart, bladder, kidneys and brain, liver metastases of a colorectal tumor are clearly visible within the yellow and red area in the right upper abdomen.Image: Jens Langner

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