Nuclear Medicine Offers Unique Diagnostic Information
Manatee Memorial Hospital's Nuclear Medicine department uses the advanced technology of nuclear medicine imaging to obtain detailed images of the body and helps identify disorders and disease.
Nuclear medicine offers unique diagnostic information about the function of many organs in the body and is a way to gather medical information that may otherwise be unavailable, require surgery or necessitate more expensive diagnostic tests. Nuclear medicine imaging procedures can often identify abnormalities very early in the progression of a disease, long before some medical problems are apparent with other diagnostic tests. This early detection allows a disease to be treated early in its course when there may be a more successful prognosis.
The Nuclear Medicine Department at Manatee Memorial Hospital has earned accreditation from the American College of Radiology (ACR).
Nuclear medicine uses very small amounts of radioactive materials, or radiopharmaceuticals, to diagnose and treat disease. Radiopharmaceuticals are substances that are attracted to specific organs, bones or tissues. The radiopharmaceuticals used in nuclear medicine emit gamma rays that can be detected externally by special types of cameras: gamma or PET cameras. These cameras work in conjunction with computers used to form images that provide data and information about the area of body being imaged. The amount of radiation from a nuclear medicine procedure is comparable to that received during a diagnostic X-ray.
Today, nuclear medicine offers procedures that are helpful to a broad span of medical specialties, from pediatrics to cardiology to psychiatry. There are nearly 100 different nuclear medicine imaging procedures available and every major organ system can be imaged by nuclear medicine.
Hospital Accreditations
Manatee Memorial Hospital is accredited by the ACR, the largest organization of radiologists in the nation, in several imaging categories.
- Breast Imaging Center of Excellence
- Breast Ultrasound
- Computed Tomography
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Mammography
- Nuclear Medicine
- Stereotactic Breast Biopsy
- Ultrasound