Nuclear medicine specializes in the imaging of an organ’s metabolic functions. This ability
allows nuclear medicine to help in the diagnosis of certain diseases, as well as identify
various medical conditions.

With nuclear medicine, a picture is taken to show how an organ is working. An intravenous catheter is inserted into the arm or hand vein, through which a radioactive tracer is injected. A gamma camera photographs the organ and the resulting film shows normal absorption or “hot” (dark) and “cold” (light) spots, relative to how the organ is functioning. Nuclear medicine can localize cancer in the bone, identify blood clots in the lungs, and scan the kidney, gallbladder, brain and other organs for similar abnormalities.

Nuclear medicine procedures

• Thyroid update and scan
• Lung ventilation and quantitative scan
• Myocardial perfusion scan
• Whole body bone scan

Thyroid uptake and scan

A thyroid uptake and scan are used to assess the function of your thyroid gland. The scan portion of this procedure determines the shape, size and location of the gland. The uptake portion detects the actual function of the thyroid gland, allowing your radiologist to determine if there are problems. Other procedures help diagnose whether a gland is over or under active, can detect thyroid nodules (detects malignancy) and detect the enlargement of thyroid goiters.

Lung ventilation and quantitative scan (V/Q)

The lung V/Q scan produces a picture of your lung ventilation as well as blood flow to the
lungs. This two-part scan first depicts how your lungs receive air. This is done with inhaled radioactive compounds that exude gamma rays that are picked up by a gamma camera. The gamma rays depict a picture of your lungs. The second part is a perfusion scan, which shows how well blood flows to your lungs.

Myocardial perfusion scan

A myocardial perfusion scan is used most often to determine CAD (coronary artery disease). CAD occurs when fatty materials build up in the coronaries causing them to narrow and prevent the normal flow of blood. Like all nuclear medicine scans, a small amount of radioactive compound is injected into the bloodstream. The absorbed tracer indicates the healthy areas of the heart.

There are two forms of myocardial perfusion scans — resting and stress. The resting technique is used to determine what parts of your myocardium (heart muscle) have decreased blood flow under resting conditions. The stress technique puts your heart muscle under stress by either exercise or medications, and also determines which parts of the myocardium have decreased blood flow.

Whole body bone scan

A bone scan can detect abnormalities in your bone tissue. With a radioactive compound, “hotspots” (areas of high activity) are detected. These hotspots collect the radioactive compound because they are areas of bone that are breaking down or going through repair. Hotspots can represent numerous diagnoses. Most often, a bone scan is used to detect cancer of the bone, but it can also detect bone and stress fractures, tumors and infection.

Contact us

To schedule an appointment for nuclear medicine at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, please call 858-626-6030.