Nuclear medicine | |
---|---|
A nuclear medicine PET scan | |
ICD-10-PCS | C |
ICD-9 | 92 |
MeSH | D009683 |
OPS-301 code | 3-70-3-72, 8-53 |
Nuclear medicine, or nucleology,[1] is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging is, in a sense, radiology done inside out, because it records radiation emitted from within the body rather than radiation that is transmitted through the body from external sources like X-ray generators. In addition, nuclear medicine scans differ from radiology, as the emphasis is not on imaging anatomy, but on the function. For such reason, it is called a physiological imaging modality. Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans are the two most common imaging modalities in nuclear medicine.[2]