January 26, 2009
Thyroid Cancer And Nuclear Medicines
Nuclear medicine's main applications include cancer related treatments and tests. It is used in both diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Thyroid cancer and nuclear medicines share a relation of disease and required medicine.
Thyroid cancers include four kinds of tumors of the thyroid gland like papillary, medullary, anapestic and follicular. These types of cancer differ a lot in form and treatments.
Nuclear medicine scans are radionuclide scans. In these scans, small amounts of radiation are injected in the body through substances. Special cameras are developed to create the images of areas where the substances are present. These tests give details of body cells which do not behave normally.
Radioiodine scan gives an idea about the relation between thyroid cancer and nuclear medicines. This is a type of nuclear medicine scan in which a small of radioactive iodine is introduced into a vein. After some time, thyroid cells in the body absorb injected iodine. Special camera is used to see radioactivity effect of the body. In the thyroid scan, the camera is situated in front patient's neck. Such preparations are made to measure the amount of radiation in the gland. Radioactive iodine is normally used modality in thyroid carcinomas. Thus nuclear medicine is used in the primary treatments
Research on thyroid cancer and nuclear medicine technology is at its peak. PET is outcome of this research. PET scan means positron emission tomography scan. A glucose containing radioactive atom is injected into the blood. The growing cancer cells in the body absorb large amount of radioactive sugar. A special camera is used to create a picture of radioactivity areas in the body.
Octreotide scans don't use radioiodine for the test. It uses a radioactively tagged hormone which is helpful to detect the spread of medullary thyroid cancer. In such a way thyroid cancer and nuclear medicines are related.
Radioiodine is a radioactive phase of iodine. Radioiodine treatment is the most appropriate treatment for thyroid cancer. This treatment saves remaining thyroid cells from the effect of radiation. This is what is expected from the treatment and procedure. The best medical effect we can draw out of the test is proper functioning of the thyroid cells. It leads to normal functioning of thyroid cells.
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