Nuclear Medicine

Nuclear medicine is a safe, painless, and cost-effective technique to image the body and treat disease. It is a way to gather medical information that would otherwise be unavailable, require surgery, or necessitate more expensive diagnostic tests. Nuclear medicine imaging procedures often identify abnormalities very early in the progress of a disease, long before many medical problems are apparent with other diagnostic tests.

Nuclear medicine uses very small amounts of radioactive materials (radiopharmaceuticals) to diagnose and sometimes treat disease. In imaging, the radiopharmaceuticals are detected by special types of cameras (gamma cameras) that work with computers to provide very precise pictures about the area of the body being imaged. In treatment, the radiopharmaceuticals go directly to the organ being treated.

The amount of radiation in a typical nuclear imaging procedure is comparable with that received during a diagnostic x-ray, and the amount received in a typical treatment procedure is kept within safe limits.

Today, nuclear medicine offers procedures that are essential in many medical specialties, from pediatrics to cardiology to psychiatry. New and innovative nuclear medicine treatments that target and pinpoint molecular levels within the body are revolutionizing our understanding of and approach to a range of diseases and conditions.

Commonly performed General Nuclear Medicine procedures at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital include:

• Whole Body Bone Scan
• Bone Scan Limited Area
• Bone Scan SPECT
• Bone Scan - Three Phase
• Gastric Emptying Scan
• Thyroid Uptake and Scan
• Thyroid Scan Only
• Renal Scan with MAG3
• Renal Scan with Lasix
• Renal Scan with Captopril
• HIDA (Gallbladder) Scan
• HIDA Scan with Ejection Fraction
• Liver/Spleen Scan
• Sentinel Node Injections
• Lung Scan (also called a V/Q Scan)
• Meckel's Scan
• Parathyroid Scan
• I-131 Thyroid Therapy (for hyperthyroidism or thyroid cancer)