Radionuclides in medical application

Radiopharmaceuticals, along with imaging instrumentation, are vital tools that detect the functional and molecular phenomena for better understanding of human disease and developing effective treatments. The field of nuclear medicine has witnessed continuous discovery of new radioisotopes and RP. The major milestones are; the continuing development of a plethora of 99mTc RP, automated synthesis of 18F labeled compounds, development of new PET agents, labeled peptides for accurate mapping of infection, metastasis and the advances in RN therapy. The most spectacular development is the regular clinical use of PET. Initially developed for studying glucose metabolism in vivo, today 18FDG is the most useful clinical PET tracer for the detection, staging, treatment planning and management of cancer. Hybrid imaging systems with SPECT/CT, PET/CT have improved the diagnostic potential. This is a much sought after modality for radiotherapy planning and sterotactic surgery. Radioactive iodine (123I,131I) still plays a pivotal role in both diagnosis and therapy. The use of the short-lived SPECT isotopes such as 201Tl, 111In and 67Ga is continuing to grow for diagnostic imaging starting from myocardial studies to tumor and infection imaging. While surgery remains the most effective method for managing cancer, RP play the role of preferred markers for identifying metastatic lymph nodes and helping surgeons to achieve better precision in tumor mass excision