Nuclear Medicine is an application of nuclear (radioisotope) techniques in a medicine. It can be broadly divided into two branches "in vitro" and "in vivo" procedures. There are numerous radioisotopic "in vitro" procedures for genotyping and molecular profiling applicable to clinical molecular biology. These procedures are becoming increasingly important in several clinical and pre-clinical conditions, from determining changes in cancer cells to drug resistance in malaria parasites. These techniques proved to be increasingly valuable in preventing catastrophic consequence of ineffective treatment.
The majority of nuclear medicine procedures are "in vivo" non-invasive procedures. After administration of the radiopharmaceutical typically by intravenous route (sometimes locally) to a patient, its distribution and localization provides functional or metabolic information. This helps doctors to make critical decisions based on objective information about the status and function of a particular organ or disease. The data is depicted with the aide of imaging systems called Gamma Cameras (be they planar or SPECT systems) and transformed into images which allow visual determination and staging of the disease. One of the fastest growing techniques is Positron Emission Tomography (PET) that requires special instrumentations called PET tomographs. This technique allows clinicians to track organ function at a molecular level, therefore revealing intricate health changes earlier in individual patients than other diagnostic modalities.
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