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The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Medicine

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Nuclear power is used all around the world for agriculture, consumer products, machinery and more. A large industry that uses nuclear power is nuclear medicine which is the use of small amounts of radiation to image, diagnose, and treat many harmful diseases. There have been arguments made about how the nuclear power is being used to create weapons but the medical advancements outweigh the negatives. Most people truly don’t understand how nuclear medicine works which causes the arguments for and against the use of it. Radiotracers, otherwise known as radiopharmaceuticals, are used to diagnose many patients around the world. Though there are examples of nuclear weapons and radiation, this type of medicine has been used to help save many people. …show more content…

A large part of nuclear medicine is the diagnosis process. Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive compounds which are used for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. They are more commonly known as radiotracers. These radioactive compounds are either injected into the bloodstream, inhaled in gaseous form, or swallowed. They mainly give off energy in the form of gamma rays which are emitted from within the body. The gamma rays emitted are then detected by a special camera and computer combination to create images of the body. This process finds unique information about the body being diagnosed which normally cannot be found using other medical procedures. This can also identify a disease in its earliest stages. Another important part of nuclear medicine is the therapeutic side. An example of that would be when radioactive iodine (I-131) is introduced to the body to treat problems like an overactive thyroid or thyroid cancer. Nuclear medicine uses information from physiological process in the body to create images. This means that there are areas called “hot spots” which show that there is a high level of chemical or metabolic activity. The opposites are “cold spots” which indicate less chemical or metabolic activity. Nuclear medicine can look very complicated but overall, it’s just the use of small amounts of radioactive materials being introduced to the body to diagnose and treat

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