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In nuclear medicine therapy, the radiation treatment dose is administered internally (e.g. intravenous or oral routes) or externally direct above the area to treat in form of a compound (e.g. in case of skin cancer).
This is a type of targeted therapy which uses the physical, chemical and biological properties of the radiopharmaceutical to target areas of the body for radiation treatment. [3] The related diagnostic modality of nuclear medicine employs the same principles but uses different types or quantities of radiopharmaceuticals in order to image or ...
As in diagnostic nuclear medicine, appropriate radionuclides can be chemically bound to a targeting biomolecule which carries the combined radiopharmaceutical to a specific treatment point. [3] It has been said that "α-emitters are indispensable with regard to optimisation of strategies for tumour therapy". [4]
Medicine has used radiation therapy as a treatment for cancer for more than 100 years, with its earliest roots traced from the discovery of X-rays in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen. [119] Emil Grubbe of Chicago was possibly the first American physician to use X-rays to treat cancer, beginning in 1896. [120]
Radiation oncologists perform all forms of radiation therapy, sometimes including radionuclide therapy. Some endocrinologists treat hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancer with 131 I. The mix of physicians rendering nuclear medicine services varies both between different countries and within a single country.
Nuclear Radiology / Nuclear Medicine specializes in the internal delivery of particle therapy whereas Radiation Oncology specializes in the external and locoregional delivery of particle therapy. Intraoperative radiation therapy or IORT is a special type of radiation therapy that is delivered immediately after surgical removal of cancer. This ...
For example in nuclear medicine, one radioactive drug is used to identify and a second radioactive drug is used to treat (therapy) cancerous tumors. [2] [3] [4] In other words, theranostics combines radionuclide imaging and radiation therapy which targets specific biological pathways.
Cobalt therapy is the medical use of gamma rays from the radioisotope cobalt-60 to treat conditions such as cancer. Beginning in the 1950s, cobalt-60 was widely used in external beam radiotherapy (teletherapy) machines, which produced a beam of gamma rays which was directed into the patient's body to kill tumor tissue.