Nuclear Medicine

Nuclear medicine is a specialized medical field based on the application of
radiopharmaceuticals, i.e. drugs associated to radioactivity, for diagnosis or
therapeutic purposes. In the past fifty years, nuclear medicine has progressed
in such a way that it is now a major tool in hospitals. Nowadays, this
technology enables to better detect, observe and describe diseases, and also
to improve treatments. Cancer therapy is the main application of this
speciality. Once injected to the patient, the radiopharmaceutical drug aims
selectively at the tumoral cells, including the metastases, settles there and
emits radiation. Depending on the type of radiation, the drug will either help
to identify the cells or to destroy them. Recent breakthroughs in this
technology bring new perspectives to oncology, haematology and neurology. At
the same time, since the beginning of the 21st century nuclear medicine has
also benefited from a double revolution in terms of imaging technology. On the
one hand, the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) made a real impact with a
polyvalent imaging drug called FDG. On the other hand, a new tool combining
functional and morphological imaging (PET-CT) was very recently made available
to the medical community. This scientific book aims to introduce nuclear
medicine to a larger audience, pointing out, among other things, the
difficulties both physicians and patients meet when trying to access new
technologies. There are still some issues to overcome, but recent scientific
breakthroughs bring great hopes for patients in the near future.