Nuclear medicine is a special form of medicine, which uses radioactive isotopes in diagnosing diseases in any part of the body. Nuclear medicine is helpful in detecting the level of cancer growth. It will be useful for the doctor to know whether cancer growth has spread in the bones.

Cancer patients will experience severe pain when the growth has spread in the bones. Then the patient will be injected radiopharmaceutical medicines like Samarium-153 or strontium 153. This type of nuclear medicine is required to reduce pain in patients especially those who are suffering from lung cancer or breast cancer.

Nuclear medicine and cancer pain management go hand in hand. Nuclear medicines like samarium or strontium will be injected into the patient in his\her vein through the arm and the amount will be normally more than that used for diagnosis process. 80% of the patients experience relief from pain by using this medicine within 7 to 20 days after treatment.

Cancer patients are required to take the nuclear medicine treatment for every 3 months. The time gap will vary depending upon the severity of the pain. Medical researches are going on to discover some other radioactive pharmaceutical substances. However, the currently approved radioisotopes by Food and Drug administration for cancer pain management are samarium or strontium only.

The nuclear medicine provides treatment for thyroid cancer and neuroendocrine cancer. If the pain is uncontrollable and frequent, the doctor will suggest taking nuclear medicine. This will however help in pain management to some extent only.

The doctor will first diagnose the cancer growth in the thyroid glands and then study the level of cancer. Then the treatment to control pain will begin. The doctor will also use nuclear medicine by inserting radioactive substances in the patient's body to see whether the cancer growth has spread in any other parts of the body.

Nuclear medicine is used widely in cancer pain management. However, further research and new technologies will increase the use of nuclear medicine in pain management and this will be a great relief for cancer patients. Advancements in nuclear medicine will surely benefit the world to lead a pain free life.

In today's world, nuclear medicine and cancer pain management are very important terms in the advancing medical field.

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