Nuclear Medicine

Hello and welcome to my section on Nuclear Medicine. I am a registered nuclear medicine technologist working in Toronto Ontario Canada. My job consists of performing nuclear medicine procedures, processing information and images using specialized computer software and presenting them to nuclear medicine physician who interprets and reports the results. There are many different nuclear medicine procedures, many of which are quite complex and require careful thought and patient preparation. Nuclear medicine deals with the function of systems int he body rather then the anatomy. Other tests such as general X-ray, ultrasound, MRI and CT scans look specifically at the anatomical function of the body systems. Nuclear medicine is used to determine the the function of organs, organ sysems or tissus. The profession of nuclear medicine is similar in the USA and Canada so if you are intested in the profession try an internet search for a school near you. If you would like more information about nuclear medicine you can check out the Society of Nuclear Medicine or Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologist web sites. These web sites have lots of information on nuclear medicine.

if you would like information about specific nuclear medicine procedures feel free to e-mail me at Marc.Thomas.Jones@gmail.com. I also administer a google group on Nuclear Medicine Procedures. This web site has not really caught on yet but with your help we can get it going. I don’t promise to have all the answers to every question but I may be able to help if you have general questions about specific exams. I am not a medical doctor and I do not know the exact procedures for every hospital or clinic, so if you have specific questions about nuclear medicine exams from certain institutions you should contact the hospital or clinic where you are having the procedure performed.

Here is a list of nuclear medicine procedures. It is not an exhaustive list but these are the most commonly performed procedures.

• Bone Scans
• Myocardial Perfusion Imaging (MIBI or Myoview procedures)
• HIDA
• V/Q (lung scan)
• Gallium
• White Blood cell
• Renal scans (lasix, DMSA, Captopril)
• Sentinel Lymph Node
• Thyroid Uptake and Scan
• Thyroid Therapy for hyperthyroidism
• Thyroid Ablation for thyroid cancer
• Salivary Gland
• Lacrimal
• Brain Scan
• First Pass Cardiac
• MUGA (Wall Motion)
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

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