Nuclear medicine imaging is a technique that helps diagnose cancer, neurological disorders and other abnormalities. It is the only imaging technique that can detect cancer in the earliest stage. It can also identify the spread and return of cancer.

A small, safe amount of radioactive material is injected, inhaled or swallowed. That mixes with the bloodstream and starts producing gamma rays, which are captured by a gamma camera. From that, a computer can create images of inside the body.

The radioisotope most widely used in nuclear medicine imaging is Tc-99, employed in 80 per cent of nuclear medicine procedures.

The information nuclear medicine imaging delivers is unlike X-ray or CT, because as well as providing anatomic information, such as what the organ looks like, it also offers functional information about how the organ is working.

The two types of nuclear medicine imaging are SPECT scan and PET scan, and are based on the different characteristics of the radioisotopes. Different radioisotopes are used to scan specific body parts. It can do this because every organ acts differently from a chemical point of view. Each organ absorbs specific substances – for example, the thyroid takes up the iodine whereas the brain consumes more glucose.

The amount of radiation used during the scanning is medically insignificant. We receive more radiation from the sun than we would from a nuclear medicine scan. Also, the radioisotope rapidly decays and is soon excreted from the body. Usually the patient experiences no discomfort, and it’s non-invasive.

The ability to observe an organ functioning from outside the body makes this technique powerful.

We have had this technology since the 1950s and since then it has advanced a lot. Yet techniques such as SPECT suffer from poor sensitivity and low resolution. To overcome these problems, we are developing the next generation of SPECT that uses a light field method that we call L-SPECT.

L-SPECT and other nuclear medicine will be discussed at the New Investigator Forum on June7 at the ANU. See asmr.org.au/asmr-mrw/canberra.

Response: Tasneem Rahman, postdoctoral researcher, UNSW

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