Nuclear Medicine
Nuclear Medicine
- GE Starport LFOV Gamma Camera
- EquiStand Gantry System
- Nuclear MAC Imaging Computer System
Nuclear Medicine, also referred to as scintigraphy, is a sensitive diagnostic procedure. It often can detect abnormalities before they become apparent on other imaging studies. To perform a nuclear medicine procedure, a small quantity of a radioactive tracer is administered to the animal. The most common radioisotope used is Technetium-99m (99mTc) Technetium-99m has a short half-life (6 hours) and 94% of it will decay within 24 hours. A gamma camera is used to record the distribution of the radiotracer within the body. The radiotracer can be attached to a variety of biologically active chemicals to localize in certain areas of the body. Above is an example of a bone scan in a normal dog. The study was performed by injecting 99mTc-MDP. The 99mTc-MDP will localize in bone proportional to the metabolic activity of the bone.
One of the most common uses of bone scintigraphy is to detect bone metastasis. Left is an example of a dog with multiple sites of bone metastases seen as multiple areas of high intensity uptake.
The University of Tennessee provides nuclear medicine as a routine clinical service 5 days a week.