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The first full week of October is Nuclear Medicine Week. Nuclear medicine refers to any procedure that uses minute amounts of radioactive material, called radiopharmaceuticals, to diagnose or treat disease. More than half of the world's medical radioactive isotopes come from the Chalk River nuclear plant in Canada. In diagnostics, nuclear medicine provides valuable information on organ function and structure, and is noninvasive and painless. Therapeutic applications of nuclear medicine include treating thyroid cancer and alleviating bone pain caused by cancer. Nuclear medicine is a relatively new field – it first gained widespread clinical use in the 1950s and was recognized as a medical specialty in 1971. Today, there are almost 100 different nuclear medical imaging procedures available. The field employs 4,000 certified nuclear medicine physicians and 15,700 certified nuclear medical technologists worldwide. Here are some highlights from the history of nuclear medicine, adapted from the Society of Nuclear Medicine's historical timeline. 1896:
Antoine Henri Becquerel discovers mysterious
"rays" emanating from uranium.
1897–1903:
Marie and Pierre Curie discover the radioactive
elements polonium and radium, and coin the term "radioactivity."
In 1903, Becquerel and the Curies win the Nobel
Prize in Physics for their research into radioactivity.
1913:
Frederick Proescher publishes the first paper
on the intravenous injection of radium for the treatment
of various diseases.
1936:
John H. Lawrence uses phosphorus-32 to treat
leukemia, the first time an artificial radionucleotide
was used in clinical therapy.
1946:
Samuel M. Seidlin, Leo D. Marinelli, and
Eleanor Oshry cure thyroid cancer using an "atomic
cocktail" containing iodine-131. Their success helps
to usher in the widespread clinical use of nuclear
medicine in the early 1950s.
1950:
Abbott
Laboratories markets the first commercial radiopharmaceutical,
iodine-131 human serum albumin (RISA).
1951:
The FDA
approves sodium iodide I-131 for use in thyroid patients,
making it the first FDA-approved radiopharmaceutical.
1954:
David Kuhl invents the first radionuclide
photorecording system.
1958:
Hal Anger invents the scintillation camera
(also known as the gamma camera, Anger camera, or radioisotope
camera). The scintillation camera allows dynamic function
studies to be carried out on entire organs for the
first time.
1959:
Solomon Berson and Rosalyn Yalow invent the
technique of radioimmunoassay (RIA) to detect insulin
antibodies in human serum. RIA allows minute quantities
of hormones and other substances to be measured precisely
for the first time, and also marks a milestone in endocrinology.
Yalow is awarded half of the 1977
Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work.
1962:
David Kuhl introduces emission reconstruction
tomography, later known as SPECT and PET. In radiology,
this method gives rise to CT scans.
1971:
The American Medical Association officially
recognizes nuclear medicine as a medical specialty.
1978:
David Goldenberg uses radiolabeled antibodies
to image human tumors.
1982:
Steve Larson and Jeff Carrasquillo use iodine-131
labeled monoclonal antibodies to treat patients with
malignant melanoma.
1983:
Henry Wagner carries out the first successful
PET imaging of a neuroreceptor – using himself
as the subject.
1990:
The Loyola University Nuclear Information
System (LUNIS) goes online, making it the first worldwide,
educational, interactive computer network for nuclear
medicine.
1996:
Brain PET scans become widely accepted.
2002:
The National
Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
is formed as part of the National
Institutes of Health.
2006:
An estimated 17.7
million nuclear medicine procedures were performed
in the United States. The majority of procedures were
cardiac exams or cancer-related. Discuss This ArticleHave something you'd like to say? Tell us what you think! Read and post comments for this article. Like this article? Read more! Browse our archive of 1,133 articles. Also, see our master index of all MedHunters articles! Find a JobChoose your career: MedHunters is the world's biggest healthcare job board. Our job directory has 17,260 jobs with 2,476 hospitals and other direct employers. We want you to find your next job on MedHunters. Need Help? Call us at 1-888-884-8242, email us at info@medhunters.com or sign up now. Have an article or story for MedHunters? Email us today at submissions@medhunters.com. |
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