NUCLEAR MEDICINE
Nuclear medicine is a medical branch that radioactive substances are used to diagnose and treat diseases. By administering radioactive elements or some specific chemical compounds prepared with these radioactive elements to a patient for diagnostic purposes either intravenously or through digestion or respiration , physiological images of relevant organ or system is obtained.
The imaging process is performed through special devices called gamma camera or PET according to the type of the radiation emitted by the radioactive substance and through this method various organ and system functions can be evaluated. Nuclear medicine is a safe and painless technique of imaging and by comparison to most of other tecniques it can detect diseases earlier. Nuclear medical examinations are not used only for diagnostic purposes but also used for evaluating the response to treatment. Additionally , radioactive substance applications has been carried out for therapeutic purposes of especially thyroid diseases, some tumors, inflammatory joint diseases and bone metastasis.
