Lives lost without nuclear medicine
The utility and benefit to society from modern forms of
radiology and nuclear medicine might not be widely recognized but hopefully are
generally accepted. The contribution of
this technology to our standard of living includes not only the ability to see
broken or fractured bones but also the ability to avoid exploratory or
unnecessary surgeries. Computed
tomography (CT) scans can create images of internal organs and body parts as
can nuclear medicine. These can identify
disease early on, prior to the need for other more invasive diagnostic means. In
addition, nuclear medicine can make images of actual blood flow through the
heart, it can identify internal infections and compliment other radiology
applications in a number of ways.
Many tens of thousands of hospitals use nuclear medicine
with the vast majority of these being for diagnosis. This is often done by injecting patients with
or having them swallow radioactivity in special chemical forms to allow the
body to move the material through natural means to locations of interest. This in turn allows unique and special
imaging with the single intake followed by characterization with radiation
detectors. The majority of the
procedures use Technitium-99 (Tc99) as the isotope of choice due to its
availability to be safely shipped, to maintain a reasonable shelf life and have
multiple oxidation states that allow many chemical bonding structures. As a result of this, Tc99 is used in tens of
millions of clinical procedures each year.
A rather long list of treatments and diagnostic applications
with ionizing radiation is very widely used in medicine today to help maintain
the highest quality of health care available.
The use does not only apply to diagnosis and assessment but also direct treatment
and so not only plays a very important role in improving overall health care
but in saving lives as well.
Another common use of nuclear medicine is the use of
radioactive iodine as this element is concentrated in the thyroid so that
imaging or treatment of polyps and tumors there can occur. All of this with medically acceptable
radiation exposures to minimize physical insult to patients.
The radio-pharmaceuticals used in nuclear medicine are only
produced in nuclear reactors or high powered accelerators. In either case, special or unique isotopes
have to be created to carry out this work.
The nuclear reactors generating the bulk of the Tc99 are foreign and are
all over 40 years old. New production
facilities are very much in need to eventually fill the supply chain to meet
the growing demand for health care here and around the world.
Other less common forms of nuclear medicine include positron
emission tomography which involves using radionuclides decaying through
emission of antimatter. Specifically an
anti-electron also known as a positron is emitted inside the body which will very
quickly will interact with a normal electron and convert them both into a pair
of high energy gamma rays. These gamma
rays are very specific and localized allowing much more precise imaging. These positron emitters are readily produced
in high powered particle accelerators where electrons can be accelerated to
phenomenally high speeds so that when they hit their designed targets, they can
knock protons and neutrons out of the nuclei of the atoms leaving them
radioactive.
Still, the vast majority of nuclear medicine requires Tc99
which in turn requires nuclear reactors as Technetium is the lowest weight
element which is not naturally occurring.
As Technetium is not naturally occurring, neither is the isotope Tc99
and so we require the use of nuclear reactors to produce this material.
