Nuclear Medicine Explanation

[ladyshy]

Evening All,

Can someone please explain the difference to me (in terms I'll understand) of a scientist working in Nuclear Medicine and a scientist working in Radiotherapy?

I always thought that Nuclear Medicine was diagnostic but today I noticed that there was something about therapeutic treatments too and I thought that was within Radiotherapy.

Cheers
China Doll xx

[kempie]

As I see it this question stems from the subdivisions over time of how radiation (or radiation sources) has been used in the field of Medicine.

Originally radiation was used to aid diagnosis (X-rays etc.). This became known as Radiology. Other types of imaging developed based on the use of radiopharmaceuticals as tracers and this became a fundamental part of the new field, Nuclear Medicine.

Therapeutic use of ionising radiation started developing during the 1930s and eventually split from Radiology to become Radiotherapy.

Nuclear Medicine, still in Radiology, then extended the use of radiopharmaceuticals beyond tracers to that of adminstering therapeutic radionuclides to specific sites of the body.

A highly simplistic view and not guaranteed to be correct!

Further info can be gleaned from good ol' Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_medicine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_therapy

[Peter Pedant]

Practically speaking, I agree with LadyShy/China Doll

If you're applying for a post, then ask them.

If you gave radio-iodine to a pt for thyroid ca, then I could see that this is tmt in the nuclear medicine field and not radiotherapy

but byand large I think what you say, is true