Home > Encyclopedia of Science > Nuclear Medicine

• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Words to Know
• Some Diagnostic Radionuclides Used in Medicine

Nuclear medicine is a special field of medicine in which radioactive materials are used to conduct medical research and to diagnose (detect) and treat medical disorders. The radioactive materials used are generally called radionuclides, meaning a form of an element that is radioactive.

Diagnosis

Radionuclides are powerful tools for diagnosing medical disorders for three reasons. First, many chemical elements tend to concentrate in one part of the body or another. As an example, nearly all of the iodine that humans consume in their diets goes to the thyroid gland. There it is used to produce hormones that control the rate at which the body...