A Painless Procedure | Four Basic Steps | How Results Are Used | Safety

Nuclear Medicine uses small, safe doses of radioactive materials to make pictures of the body's interior and to tell how well an organ or part of the body is working. A Nuclear Medicine test uses a scanner that works much like a camera. Nuclear Medicine services are located on all three hospital campuses. To schedule a test ordered by your doctor, call 570-321-2400.

Nuclear medicine is one of the most painless yet reliable diagnostic tests available in medicine today. If you receive a shot for your scan, it will be no more painful than having your blood drawn. If you are to swallow or breathe in a radioactive compound, you will feel nothing at all.

The scanning procedure may take anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes. At times during the scanning, you will be asked to sit or lie perfectly still with a large camera beside you. You will not feel the scanning taking place.

Preparation

You receive a radioactive medicine or tracer through injection, swallowing or breathing. Different compounds are used to study different parts of the body. Depending on the type of scan you are to have, your doctor may also instruct you on additional preparations.

The following are procedures that require specific preparations:

• C14 PY Breath Test*: Fast for 6 hours.
• Gallbladder Scan*: Fast for 4 hours, no narcotic medicine for 4 hours.
• Gastric Emptying Time*: Fast for 6 hours.
• GE Reflux: Arrive with a full stomach.
• Meckel's Diverticulum Scan: Fast after midnight.
• Myocardial Perfusion Scan*: Fast after midnight, wear "jogging" clothes.
• Renal Scans: Drink fluid before test.
• Captopril Renal Scan*: Fast for 4 hours except for liquids.
• Thyroid Scan*.

Medicines you take may affect certain procedures. These procedures are noted with an asterisk(*). Medicine information is discussed when your scan is scheduled.

Circulation

After the tracer travels through your body, it gives off invisible gamma rays that the scanner can see. The tracer collects in the area your doctor wishes to study. Depending on the compound used, it may reach its destination in a matter of minutes, or it may take several hours or days.

Scanning

The scanner records the gamma rays from the tracer as flashes of light. These are then combined to create a picture of the part of the body being tested. A computer is often used to give extra information about the function of the area being looked at. You don't have to hold your breath for a nuclear medicine scan.

Analysis

A nuclear medicine doctor reads the pictures produced by the scan. Your doctor receives the results.

Nuclear medicine is primarily a diagnostic tool. It can help doctors evaluate the function of the heart, lungs, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, thyroid and salivary glands. Nuclear medicine can be especially useful in detecting particular infections and tumors in their early stages and to locate irregularities in the bones.

As a treatment tool, nuclear medicine can treat overactive thyroid glands, thyroid cancer and blood imbalances. It also treats pain from certain types of bone cancer.

Patients are safe from overexposure to radiation from nuclear medicine for three important reasons:

1. We use only tiny doses of radioactive materials in diagnosis.
2. The drugs we use lose most of their radioactivity in a few hours and your body quickly eliminates them.
3. We carefully control the facilities of the department of Nuclear Medicine and meet rigid safety standards. Our highly skilled personnel are experienced, well trained and safety-conscious at all times.

Please be sure to tell your doctor if there is any chance you are pregnant or if you are breastfeeding.