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Physicians in UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Nuclear Medicine/PET Program use small amounts of radioactive medicine (radiopharmaceuticals) to produce images or deliver radiation to an area for treatment of certain disease states, including lymphoma, ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer. Nuclear medicine imaging is unique because it provides doctors with information about both structure and function, such as blood flow, filtration and metabolism, of the various organs being scanned. It is a way to gather medical information that would otherwise be unavailable, require surgery or necessitate more expensive diagnostic tests. Through nuclear medicine, our physicians can often identify abnormalities very early in the progress of a disease, long before many medical problems are apparent with other diagnostic tests.
Positron emission tomography, one nuclear medicine imaging technique, can produce a three-dimensional picture of the functional processes within an organ system or the whole body. The first in the Metroplex to offer PET/CT scans, UT Southwestern also has the first 64-slice PET/CT system, which we use for gated respiratory and cardiac studies. We are a leader in the use of PET imaging for Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and neurotoxic agents.
With nuclear medicine imaging, the patient is usually injected with a radiopharmaceutical but it may be ingested or inhaled as well. The amount of radioactivity is very small and there is no significant danger from nuclear medicine scans. The patient is then scanned by a camera which detects the gamma radiation (similar to X-rays) coming from the radioactive material now inside the patient. Scans usually occur with the patient lying on a table with the camera placed a few inches away. The patient may also be seated or in some other position depending on the information that is being obtained by the scan. Nuclear medicine scans vary in length but usually require one to one and a half hours of imaging.
UT Southwestern’s dedicated nuclear medicine physicians interpret the images and functional information to identify diseases and conditions earlier and more accurately than when using other radiological exams. This information can provide referring physicians and their patients with better treatment and planning options.
