Nuclear medicine uses radiation to provide diagnostic information about the functioning of a person’s specific organs. Diagnostic procedures using radioisotopes are becoming more routine due to the valuable information they can provide.
Why Use Radiopharmaceuticals?
Every organ in our bodies acts differently from a chemical point of view. Nuclear medicine researchers have identified many chemicals and how specific organs absorb them. With this knowledge, radiopharmacists are able to attach various radioisotopes to biologically active substances. Once a radioactive form of one of these substances enters the body, it is incorporated into the normal biological processes and excreted in the usual ways. Diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals can be used to examine blood flow to the brain, functioning of the liver, lungs, heart or thyroid.
It is important to understand how radiopharmaceutical doses are used.
The amount of radiopharmaceutical to give to a patient needs to be the correct dosage to obtain the required information before its decay. It must emit enough gamma rays of sufficient energy to be seen by the technologist yet it must have a half-life short enough for it to decay away soon after imaging is completed. The radiopharmaceutical can be used to predict the effects of surgery success as well as assess changes since previous treatments.
Effects on Patients
The patient experiences no discomfort during the test. After just a relatively short time, there is no trace that the test was ever done. The non-invasive nature of new technology, together with the ability to observe an organ functioning from outside the body, makes the use of radiopharmaceuticals a powerful diagnostic tool.
ec² Software Solutions have several programs that help radio technologist use radio pharmaceuticals every day. We ensure that doses are accurate, quality is maintained and patient records are maintained. Our BioRx and RMIS were designed to meet the whole range of radiopharmacy needs and enhance patient customer service. Contact ec² Software Solutions at www.ec2Software.com or at 800-851-0025, option 2.