| Nuclear Medicine
Nuclear medicine is a branch of medical imaging that uses small amounts of radioactive material to diagnose or treat a variety of diseases, including many types of cancers, heart disease and certain other abnormalities within the body.
Nuclear medicine or radionuclide imaging procedures are noninvasive and, with the exception of intravenous injections, are usually painless medical tests that help physicians diagnose medical conditions. These imaging scans use radioactive materials called radiopharmaceuticals.
Depending on the type of nuclear medicine exam you are undergoing, the radiotracer is either injected into a vein, or swallowed or inhaled as a gas. It eventually accumulates in the organ or area of your body being examined, where it gives off energy in the form of gamma rays. This energy is detected by a device called a gamma camera. The camera works together with a computer to measure the amount of radiopharmaceutical absorbed by your body and to produce special pictures offering details on both the structure and function of organs and tissues.
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At MMC, nuclear medicine images can be superimposed with computed tomography (CT) to produce special views, a practice known as image fusion. These views allow the information from two different studies to be correlated and interpreted on one image, leading to more precise information and accurate diagnoses.
MMC physicians use radionuclide imaging procedures to visualize the structure and function of an organ, tissue, bone or system of the body.
Some of the common imaging procedures performed at MMC are:
Bone Scan Gallbladder Scan Gastric Emptying Cardiac Scan Renal Scan
Nuclear medicine also offers therapeutic procedures such as radioactive iodine (1-131) therapy that uses radioactive material to treat cancer and other medical conditions affecting the thyroid gland.
If you have specific questions about your procedure, please call 207-662-2571 and ask to speak with a nuclear medicine technologist.
Availability Nuclear medicine services are available at our Main Campus on the Western Promenade in Portland and our Scarborough Campus.
PET Imaging Positron Emmision Tomography (PET) is performed at our Scarborough Campus by Maine Molecular Imaging (MMI). For additional information, click on this link to go to their website: http://www.mmipetct.org/zportal/portals/pat/
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