Nuclear Medicine: Do the Negatives Outweigh the Positives?
Nuclear medicine has been around for a long period of time and improvements are constantly being made to its procedures but one question still remains prominent: do the negatives outweigh the positives? Before beginning to evaluate this question by looking at the particular risks and benefits in procedure and production, it’s necessary to understand the basics of nuclear medicine. Nuclear medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the use of radioactive substances in research, diagnosis, and treatment. It works by small radioactive materials being either injected into the bloodstream, inhaled, or ingested by the patient to either treat or determine a disease. When nuclear materials
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Now that the essential knowledge of nuclear medicine has been outlined, understanding the specific negatives and positives and determining which outweighs which will be slightly less difficult.
Negatives related to nuclear medicine most commonly are associated to cost, production, and personal health. Radioactive isotopes are extremely expensive and not every hospital can afford them. Nuclear medicine is exceedingly costly to produce, set up, and operate. This means hospitals sometimes have to choose the most affordable option, which often times isn't the safest. The concerns of radioactive isotope production isn’t limited to just cost however. A single radioisotope has the capacity to harm millions of people through contamination or radiation exposure(2), and they have potentially hazardous effects, particularly significant harm on the environment, if they inadvertently escape into the surrounding area of the nuclear reactor. Further concerns with