The Ethical Use Of Radioisotopes In Nuclear Medicine

Radioisotopes in Medicine
Nuclear medicine uses radiation to provide diagnostic information about the functioning of a person's specific organs, or to treat them. Diagnostic procedures are now routine. * Radiotherapy can be used to treat some medical conditions, especially cancer, using radiation to weaken or destroy particular targeted cells. * Tens of millions of nuclear medicine procedures are performed each year, and demand for radioisotopes is increasing rapidly.
Nuclear Medicine
This is a branch of medicine that uses radiation to provide information about the functioning of a person's specific organs or to treat disease. In most cases, the information is used by physicians to make a quick, accurate diagnosis of the patient's
The most common radioisotope used in diagnosis is technetium-99, with some 30 million procedures per year, accounting for 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures worldwide.
In developed countries (26% of world population) the frequency of diagnostic nuclear medicine is 1.9% per year, and the frequency of therapy with radioisotopes is about one tenth of this. In the USA there are some 18 million nuclear medicine procedures per year among 311 million people, and in Europe about 10 million among 500 million people. In Australia there are about 560,000 per year among 21 million people, 470,000 of these using reactor isotopes. The use of radiopharmaceuticals in diagnosis is growing at over 10% per year.
Nuclear medicine was developed in the 1950s by physicians with an endocrine emphasis, initially using iodine-131 to diagnose and then treat thyroid disease. In recent years specialists have also come from radiology, as dual CT/PET procedures have become
Only ten percent of medically used radioactive isotopes used in America are actually produced here in the United States. The other 90 percent we use must be imported from other countries, creating a hardship on our medical community who desire to meet growing demand--as well as participate in research activities that might aid in further advances in this field (for both cancers and other disease treatments).
Additional benefit * Another benefit of radioactive isotopes is its ability to aid doctors in making an earlier and a more thorough diagnosis of cancer. When a tiny amount of the radioactive substance is introduced in some way into the patient's body, it can be detected by a special machine (through the energy it gives off) as it travels through the body. This allows the doctor to track the movement and final location of the isotope, more accurately pinpointing the exact area infected than with the x-ray methods used before.

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