Nuclear medicine is a specialized medical field
based on the application of radiopharmaceuticals, i.e.
drugs associated to radioactivity, for diagnosis or
therapeutic purposes. In the past fifty years, nuclear
medicine has progressed in such a way that it is now a
major tool in hospitals. Nowadays, this technology
enables to better detect, observe and describe diseases,
and also to improve treatments. Cancer therapy is the
main application of this speciality. Once injected to
the patient, the radiopharmaceutical drug aims
selectively at the tumoral cells, including the
metastases, settles there and emits radiation. Depending
on the type of radiation, the drug will either help to
identify the cells or to destroy them. Recent
breakthroughs in this technology bring new perspectives
to oncology, haematology and neurology. At the same
time, since the beginning of the 21st century nuclear
medicine has also benefited from a double revolution in
terms of imaging technology. On the one hand, the
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) made a real impact
with a polyvalent imaging drug called FDG. On the other
hand, a new tool combining functional and morphological
imaging (PET-CT) was very recently made available to the
medical community. This scientific book aims to
introduce nuclear medicine to a larger audience,
pointing out, among other things, the difficulties both
physicians and patients meet when trying to access new
technologies. There are still some issues to overcome,
but recent scientific breakthroughs bring great hopes
for patients in the near future.
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